Russian President's Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in a telephone conversation with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen hoped that the parties to the conflict over the Renaissance hydropower plant would be able to find a mutually acceptable way out on certain terms.
"In the course of the conversation, there was an exchange of views on the situation around Ethiopia's construction of the Renaissance hydroelectric power plant on the Blue Nile River in the context of raising this issue in the UN Security Council. The Russian side expressed hope for the eventual solution of this problem in the negotiations between the directly concerned countries - Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan - under the auspices of the African Union," a statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry issued on Thursday reads.
Ethiopia has been implementing a project to build Africa's largest dam, Renaissance, since 2011. The capacity of the hydropower plant, which will be a cascade of four dams, will be 5,250 MW. The project is 80% complete and Addis Ababa intends to commission the dam in 2022-2023. Egypt and Sudan fear that as a result of its commissioning, the Nile may face acute water shortage, which will lead to numerous socio-economic and environmental problems, and are trying to fix for themselves water standards and to stretch the terms of filling the dam as much as possible
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Based on materials from TASS