Sudan renews rejection to unilateral filling of Nile Dam

Khartoum, June 8 Sudan has renewed its rejection to unilateral filling of the disputed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on Nile River without reaching a legal and binding agreement

Chairing a meeting on Monday of the Higher Committee for the GERD, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok noted the direct threat the unilateral filling and operating of the GERD poses to the country's Roseires Dam, irrigation projects, power generating systems and citizens on the banks of the Nile, reports Xinhua news agency.

The meeting also renewed Sudan's adherence to and belief in the principle of "African solutions to African problems".

Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have been in talks for years over the technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of the GERD.

Sudan proposed a mediation quartet of the UN, the European Union, the US and the African Union regarding the GERD issue.

Ethiopia, however, has announced its rejection to this formula.

In February, Ethiopia said it would carry on with the second-phase 13.5-billion-cubic-metre filling of the GERD in June.

The volume of the first-phase filling last year was 4.9 billion cubic metres.

Ethiopia, which started building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the dam project.

While Egypt and Sudan, downstream Nile Basin countries that rely on the river for its freshwater, are concerned that the dam might affect their share of the water resources.

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