Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will arrive in Cairo on Saturday evening to meet Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, in his first visit to Egypt as premier. In an official statement, El-Sisi's spokesman Bassam Rady said Ahmed will be in Egypt for two days and will talk to the president about “various issues.” According to AfricaNews website, Ahmed is visiting Cairo after a visit to Uganda for talks with Egypt's Sisi which will include the Nile Basin dynamics, regional security and trade. The two leaders are scheduled to hold a press conference following their Sunday meeting, Rady said. In May, an Egyptian delegation to Addis Ababa comprised of Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and acting head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Abbas Kamel formally invited Ahmed, who took office in April, to visit Cairo. The invitation came after Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan reached an agreement on the next steps to reconcile their differences on the under-construction Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, following months of stalemate in negotiations between the three countries. Over the past seven years, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have held several rounds of talks on the dam's anticipated impact on Nile water resources. Egypt has repeatedly voiced concerns that the rate of filling the reservoirs of the GERD could reduce its share of Nile water, which Ethiopia denies. During the negotiations, the parties agreed to five new points and renewed their commitment to the earlier Declaration of Principles, which was signed in Khartoum in March 2015. The three countries agreed to have the involved parties sent their comments on the initial technical report to the French technical consultancy firm which issued it, hold a tripartite summit meeting every six months, and establish a joint investment fund and establish an independent scientific group to reconcile their differing views on the dam. A tripartite meeting will be held in Cairo in the presence of representatives of the consultancy firm to discuss the responses to the inquiries sent by the three countries. That meeting will be followed by another tripartite meeting with firm representatives in Cairo on 18-19 June. Ethiopia hopes to be able to export electricity generated by the dam, which will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa.
