Sudan: Egypt requested postponement of tripartite meeting on Ethiopian dam

 Sudanese minister of Water Resources and Electricity Moatez Moussa has said that the tripartite meeting with his counterparts in Egypt and Ethiopia on the Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) which was scheduled for late November in Khartoum was postponed to a later date at the request of the Cairo, according to Sudan Tribune.
Moussa said that Egypt wanted to merge this meeting with a separate one that brings together the foreign ministers of the same countries.
He stressed that the delay was due to scheduling issues related to the foreign ministers and no other reasons.
The meeting is supposed to be held in the presence of the two French and Dutch consultancy firms to reconcile their convergent views with regard to the mechanisms of implementation of the required studies.
The three countries will also discuss contingency plans in the absence of agreement between the firms which would include picking new ones and restarting the selection process all over again.
The three countries had previously formed a committee to select a consultancy firm to assess the impact of GERD on Sudan and Egypt.
During the 9th round of negotiations held in Cairo earlier this month, Egypt officially handed the Ethiopian side a list of its observations on the dam, which focused mainly on the acceleration of the dam construction while slowing down the negotiations which would not allow for the implementation of the recommendations of the consultancy firms.