Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail confirmed that the Ethiopia Renaissance Dam issue was not raised during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), currently held in Johannesburg.

In statements on Saturday to the Egyptian media team covering FOCAC, Ismail said there are intensive negotiations with Ethiopia on technical issues and Egypt's needs of water.

Egypt seeks to protect its historical quota of the Nile water standing at 55 billion cubic meters annually, he stressed, adding that the dam should not be used in anything other than serving development goals.

Meanwhile, the six-party meeting on the Ethiopian dam was deferred from December 6-7 to December 11-12 at Ethiopia's request, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tewodoros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on the fringe of the FOCAC that he was ordered to accompany the Ethiopian premier in an important visit to Kenya on the same date of the six-party meeting in Khartoum, Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said.

The three states agreed during their last meeting on the importance of holding a six-party meeting comprising the irrigation and foreign ministers of the three states ahead of the tripartite meeting of irrigation ministers only to find a way to expedite technical studies on the dam, especially by settling the problems between the French and Dutch consultancy firms, BRL and Deltares respectively, in charge of the technical studies of the dam.

The last tripartite meeting failed to achieve a breakthrough so that it was important to hold the six-party meeting.

The six-party meeting will also discuss different scenarios if the two companies did not reach an agreement on ways to perform the required studies.

The Dutch company - that would be in charge of 30 percent of the workload - announced its withdrawal in September, but Egypt rejected allowing one consultancy firm to be in charge of the studies.

Sources: MENA