CAIRO — US President Donald Trump sponsored a meeting of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia Nov. 6. The meeting was chaired by both Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and World Bank President David Malpass, and it led to the planning of four meetings to be held among the ministers of water resources of the three countries in order to conclude an agreement by Jan. 15, 2020, on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD.

Two more meetings are to be held on Dec. 9 and Jan. 13 in Washington to assess the negotiations process.

Following years of negotiations, Egypt has failed to achieve many of its demands, including the safety requirements related to the dam and the economic, social and environmental studies on the dam's impact. Ethiopia has overlooked the need for such studies and has completed construction before any technical or political talks were accomplished.

The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources announced Oct. 5 that talks with Sudan and Ethiopia over the operation of GERD had reached a deadlock after Ethiopia rejected Egypt's proposal on ways to reduce the dam's impact on Egypt's Nile water quota.