Sudan’s PM calls for urgent meeting over Nile dam row

By: Emmanuel Igunza, BBC News

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has called for an urgent summit of leaders of Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan to try and resolve the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The talks are seen as last-ditch attempts to revive tripartite talks that collapsed last week in Kinshasa.

Ethiopia has vowed to go on with a second filling of the dam during the rainy season beginning June. But Egypt and Sudan want a binding agreement in place before the filling continues.

This comes as Egyptian parliamentarians vowed to “support to the hilt” President Abdul Fattah al Sisi, who has said all options are on the table in dealing with the water dispute.

MP Tarek Redwan told a human rights conference in Cairo that Ethiopia’s PM and parliament had twice refused invitations to Egypt to listen to the plight of millions of farmers who were fearful of the impact of the dam on downstream countries.

“Egyptian farmers are not opposed to the economic development of Ethiopia. The same water that feed their development is the same water that feed our farms and families. The River Nile should be a bind between us, not a source of dispute or war,” he said.