Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed on Thursday the latest developments in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute in Tunis with his Tunisian counterpart Othman Jerandi, the Egyptian foreign ministry stated. Shoukry arrived in Tunis earlier on Thursday to deliver a message from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to Tunisian President Kais Saeid to explain Egypt's stance on the recent developments in the stalled negotiations over the disputed dam. Jerandi received Shoukry upon his arrival in Tunisia. During a visit to Cairo last week, Saeid affirmed that his country will never accept Egypt's water security be compromised, stressing that Tunisia adopts the same stances as Egypt in the international arena. Tunisia is the seventh and last stop for Shoukry in his African tour following Kenya, Comoros, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, and Senegal. Kenya and Tunisia are currently the only two African countries that have non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council (UNSC). The decade-long dispute, which has been a source of tension between Cairo and Khartoum, on one side, and Addis Ababa, on the other, has recently escalated on the heels of the collapse of the Kinshasa talks earlier this month. Egypt and Sudan have repeatedly pursued reaching a legally binding agreement on the rules for filling and operating the GERD amid concerns that the hydropower dam will affect their water shares, but the step has been repeatedly dodged or rejected by Ethiopia. Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan sent letters to the UNSC explaining the latest developments in the GERD crisis and asking for a resolution that prohibits Ethiopia from taking any unilateral action, including its intention to embark on a second filling of the dam's reservoir in July before a legally binding instrument is reached. Ethiopia, on the other hand, has called upon members of the UNSC to urge Egypt and Sudan to return to the African Union-brokered tripartite negotiations.
