The U.S. Department of State in a statement has announced that its Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, will travel to Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan from May 4 to May 13, 2021.
As one of the international brokers of negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Special Envoy will hold meetings with officials from the respective governments and mediated by the African Union, the United Nations and the United States.
He is expected to also meet with a range of political stakeholders and humanitarian organisations.
“The Special Envoy’s travel underscores the Administration’s commitment to lead a sustained diplomatic effort to address the interlinked political, security, and humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa, and he will coordinate U.S. policy across the region to advance that goal,” the statement read.
Amidst the diplomatic escalation taken by both Egypt and Sudan recently to apply pressure against Ethiopia, Feltman’s talk with Egyptian officials will update them on the latest development on the dam, in order to reach legally binding agreement on the mechanism of operating the dam and filling its reservoir.
Egypt and Sudan insist that a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam should be reached before Ethiopia implements the second phase of dam filling.
Ethiopia, however, says it will complete the dam filling in July while keeping 13.5 billion cubic metres of Nile water with or without an agreement.
The dispute over the GERD dam among concerned states dates back to May 2011 when Ethiopia started building the dam; Egypt voiced concern over its water share [55.5 billion cubic metres].
In 2015, the three countries signed the Declaration of Principles to ensure that the downstream countries do not get negatively impacted by the construction of the dam, expected to generate 6,000 megawatts per annum through 16 turbines and has capacity of 74 billion cubic metres.