South Africa calls Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia back to negotiating table on dam talks
After Sudan and Egypt announced they were suspending talks, the African Union chair urged all three parties to resume discussions.
After Sudan and Egypt threatened to walk out on talks over Ethiopia's controversial Blue Nile dam project, South Africa has urged the three parties to come back to the negotiating table.
South Africa, which is mediating the latest round of talks as the current chair of the African Union (AU), said in a statement Thursday that it "encourages the parties to remain engaged.”
“We would like to urge them to continue to be guided by the spirit of Pan-African solidarity and fraternity," South Africa’s International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor said. “It is important that the parties should display magnanimity and understanding of each other’s interests so as to move the process forward.”
Previous AU-mediated talks have ended in deadlock, with Ethiopia arguing the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is crucial to its economic development and would provide much-needed electricity in a country where half the population lives without power.
