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Addis Ababa rejoices over GERD progress as talks drag on

Ethiopia is celebrating its progress on filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, no experts are expressing hope for a binding agreement to emerge from the latest round of tripartite talks.
(FILES) In this file photo taken on October 22, 2019 boats are pictured along the riverbank and off the water of the Nile river delta's Damietta branch near the estuary into the Mediterranean sea, in the town of Ezbel al-Borg in Egypt's northern Governorate of Damietta, some 265 kilometres north of the Egyptian capital. - The Nile, Egypt's lifeline since Pharaonic days, faces massive strain from pollution, over-use and climate change -- and now the threat of a colossal dam being built far upstream in Ethiop

CAIRO — Following a week of local consultations, the technical and legal negotiating committees in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resumed a second round of discussions Aug. 3 to reach a comprehensive and binding agreement governing the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under the auspices of the African Union. 

The fresh round of talks comes after Ethiopia unilaterally began to fill the dam's reservoir with about 5 billion cubic meters of water without reaching agreement with downstream countries Egypt and Sudan.

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