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Nile dam negotiations back on track after Trump remarks

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resume AU-sponsored negotiations on the controversial dam Addis Ababa is building on the Nile River, days after US President Donald Trump warned that Egypt has the right to blow up the dam.
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CAIRO — Three days after US President Donald Trump's statements about Egypt's right to resort to military action to defend its interests in the Nile waters against the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the technical and legal teams headed by the foreign and water ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resumed negotiations Oct. 26 on the dam under the auspices of the African Union. The talks come after a two-month hiatus on talks to reach a comprehensive and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam.

In an Oct. 23 phone call from the Oval Office with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan's ruling sovereign council, and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced in front of reporters the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel, Trump discussed the dispute over the dam as a priority of his foreign agenda in dealing with Sudan. He addressed Hamdok, demanding he do something about the Ethiopians.

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