Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a telephone conversation with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry pointed to the need to continue negotiations on the situation around the construction of the power plant Renaissance. This is stated in a statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry distributed on Monday.
"Referring to the situation around the construction of the Renaissance hydropower plant on the Blue Nile River, Lavrov stressed the need to continue the negotiation process between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resolve the remaining contradictions while respecting the interests of all parties involved, based on the rules and principles of international law," the statement said.
Smolensk Square informed that the ministers also exchanged views on topical regional issues. "The proximity of the two countries' approaches to the key aspects of the settlement in Libya in the light of the Berlin International Conference that ended June 23," the diplomatic office stressed.
In addition, Lavrov and Shoukry discussed prospects for further development of traditionally friendly Russian-Egyptian relations, including in the context of the results of the June 24 regular meeting of the joint Russian-Egyptian commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation in Moscow.
Dispute around the dam
Ethiopia has been implementing the largest dam project in Africa since 2011. The capacity of the hydropower plant, which is 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 are afraid that as a result of the operation of the hydroelectric power station there may appear acute shortage of water, which will lead to numerous social, economic and environmental problems, they try to fix for themselves water norms and to stretch out the terms of filling the dam as long as possible.
The three countries have been unable to reach a compromise for a year. Ethiopia refused both compulsory arbitrations at the final stage of the project and the involvement of international mediators represented by the EU, UN or USA.
Last July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia offered technical assistance to the countries involved in the dispute over the dam. In April of this year, Lavrov, following talks with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, recalled this initiative, noting that the assistance consisted primarily of images from space and analysis of water and energy experts.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS