Ethiopia will take part in US mediated talks on the controversial dam being built on the River Nile, a spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs ministry in Addis Ababa disclosed on Thursday.
Nebiat Getachew, spokesperson of the ministry told journalists on Thursday that the government accepted the invitation by the US government for trilateral talks in Washington DC.
The government in Cairo proposed the involvement of a third party mediation and discussion among the leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt to resolve the differences on the use of the Abay River (Blue Nile), which Ethiopia had opposed.
The three Nile neighbours will be represented by their foreign ministers in Washington mediated talks to be held soon, Nebiat said.
He said Ethiopia will stick to its previous position including the dam’s filling time- not more than five years as opposed to Egypt’s recent proposal which proposed not less than 10 years.
Cairo’s recent proposal among other issues demanded Ethiopia to release 40 billion cubic meters of water to downstream countries every year and to keep the water volume in Aswan dam in Egypt to 165 meter above sea level.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, agreed to utilize the River Nile in ways that do not compromise the benefits to their peoples.
MG/as/APA