Egypt Parliament Urges Speaker To Settle Nile Dam Row With Ethiopia Amid Stalled Talks

The Agriculture and Irrigation Committee of the Egyptian parliament has called on the legislature's speaker, Ali Abdel Aal, to visit Ethiopia to negotiate the problem regarding the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the committee's deputy head, Raef Temraz, told Sputnik on Tuesday

CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th September, 2019) The Agriculture and Irrigation Committee of the Egyptian parliament has called on the legislature's speaker, Ali Abdel Aal, to visit Ethiopia to negotiate the problem regarding the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the committee's deputy head, Raef Temraz, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

On Monday, Egypt officially announced that the two-day negotiations with Addis Ababa on the process of the GERD's construction stalled after the Ethiopian delegation refused to discuss a proposal concerning the filling and operating of the reservoir.

"We will open all popular channels [to contact] Ethiopia. We have already contacted the parliament and asked the parliament's head to visit Ethiopia," Temraz said in an interview with Sputnik.

The lawmaker added that Egypt's peasant unions and Coptic Church will address their counterparts in Ethiopia over the matter to facilitate talks on the official level.

Temraz stressed that the countries were bound together by the right of the Egyptian people to water resources and the right of the Ethiopians to use the resources for the country's development.

"These two rights shouldn't contradict each other," the lawmaker told Sputnik.

Ethiopia has been building the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile since 2011 and it is expected to become fully operational by 2022. The project is aimed at turning Ethiopia into Africa's biggest electric power exporter.

Cairo has been concerned by the construction, fearing that the project may affect Egypt's share of water and seriously damage the national economy and agriculture.

The main issues in the talks are related to the volumes of annual water release after the first stage of filling the reservoir. Egypt proposes an annual release of 40 billion cubic meters, while Ethiopia insists on 35 billion.