Asharg Al-Awsat
The Head of the General Intelligence Service, Major General Abbas Kamel, landed Tuesday in Khartoum on a brief one-day visit to discuss with Sudanese officials the latest developments of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Kamel transferred a verbal message from Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi to the Head of the Transitional Sovereign Council, Lieutenant General Abdul-Fattah al-Burhan on bilateral relations and ways to support and develop them and the enhancement of the common interests betwen the two countries.
Kamel also held talks with the First Deputy Chairman of the Transitional Sovereign Council, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, on the developments concerning the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and efforts made to overcome differences through dialogue.
For his part, Burhan expressed his thanks and appreciation to the Egyptian intelligence chief for the visit and conveyed his greetings to the Egyptian leadership.
Sudanese Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas conveyed his country’s reservation over the Ethiopian unilateral move of filling the dam before reaching a binding agreement between the three countries, considering the move as a harmful and disturbing precedent in the path of cooperation between the concerned parties.
During talks held Monday on filling and operating the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam at the invitation of South Africa, the current Chairman of the African Union, Khartoum had asked for postponing the negotiations for another week to make consultations.
On Tuesday, Hamdok chaired the first meeting of the High Committee for the Follow up of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The meeting went over Ethiopia’s unilateral move of filling the dam, as well as its impact on Sudan and the track of negotiations in the future.
