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TNCRD to meet in Sudan on Thursday The meeting comes as the fifteenth for the committee after failure of the last meeting which was held in Ethiopia in May
The Tripartite National Committee on the Renaissance Dam (TNCRD) is to meet on Thursday in the city of Atbara in Sudan to discuss the initial report by the two French consultancy firms—BRL and Artelia—tasked with assessing the possible impact of the dam on downstream countries, state media cited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' spokesperson Ahmed Abou Zaid. The meeting comes as the fifteenth meeting of the committee, which aims to reach an agreement between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia about the Ethiopian dam after the failure of the last meeting, which was held in Ethiopia in May. Also, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail met with Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohammed Abd El-Aty to discuss increasing the benefit of using the Nile River, state media reported. The meeting of the TNCRD is believed to be discussed in the meeting. In April, the TNCRD finalised its meeting in Cairo in the presence of experts from three countries: Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. The meeting approved the schedule and mechanisms for exchanging data, information, and previous studies needed. Studies aim to put guidelines for the storage bases in order not to negatively affect the water flow in the Blue Nile and the dams along the Nile. On July, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry discussed with his Ethiopian counterpart, Workineh Gebeyehu, on the margin of meetings of the executive council of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the developments of the Renaissance Dam. During the meeting, Shoukry asserted to his Ethiopian counterpart Egypt's high interest in ending the technical course of the Dam's impacts on Egypt and facilitating the process of ending these studies on time, and the Ethiopian minister asserted his country's commitment to cooperation with Egypt to continue the technical course and ending the studies on time, as well as Ethiopia's commitment to the principles declaration. On August, Shoukry discussed with his Sudanese counterpart Ibrahim Ghandour, the Nile waters issue, and outlined the importance of resuming the meetings of the tripartite technical committee as soon as possible to expedite the completion of the studies carried out by the consulting offices. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, formerly known as the Millennium Dam, is under construction in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia on the Blue Nile River. Construction of the Dam started in April 2011. However, Egypt has expressed concerns that the construction of the dam could negatively affect Egypt's share of the Nile water.
