Trump says meeting with Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan top officials 'went well'

CAIRO – 6 November 2019: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised a meeting with top representatives from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan on the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, saying on his Twitter that it “went well and discussions will continue during the day!.”

Just had a meeting with top representatives from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to help solve their long running dispute on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, one of the largest in the world, currently being built. The meeting went well and discussions will continue during the day! pic.twitter.com/MsWuEBgZxK

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2019

Egypt and Ethiopia are at loggerheads over the $4-billion GERD; Cairo voiced concern over its water share after Ethiopia started building the dam on the Blue Nile in May 2011.

A series of tripartite talks between the two countries along with Sudan began in 2014. One year later, the three countries signed the Declaration of Principles, per which the downstream countries [Egypt and Sudan] should not be negatively affected by the construction of the dam. However, Cairo and Addis Ababa have recently blamed each other for hindering a final agreement concerning a technical problem.

On Sunday November 3, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed to Washington to participate in the trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, upon the invitation of the U.S. Administration.

Shoukry in the US reviewed with Chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Lindsey Graham Egypt’s efforts to reach an agreement on GERD to preserve the interests of all concerned countries.

"This (goal) has not been achieved so far because the Ethiopian side has not responded," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement added that Shoukry reviewed the regional development and the Egyptian vision to address the different crises in the Middle East. He also reviewed Egypt’s efforts to reach political solutions to regional problems as well as ways to face the Turkish role in destabilizing the region, Hafez’s statement added.

The two sides also discussed the strategic ties between the two countries as well as the need for continued US support for Egypt to be able to confront security, political, economic and social challenges.