Sudan's Abdalla Hamdok says regional meeting agreed to for Ethiopia conflict
14 December, 2020
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said he previously agreed with Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed to carry an urgent meeting of a regional bloc to solve the crisis on Ethiopia's Tigray region.
Ethiopia didn't immediately confirm Mr Hamdok's announcement of an emergency meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
He flew to Ethiopia on Sunday for a visit lasting a long time amid growing tension in your community over Addis Ababa’s campaign in Tigray and the dispute above its Nile dam.
The unannounced visit by Mr Hamdok produced an agreement to regenerate a joint committee to look for the border between Sudan and Ethiopia after armed clashes there in recent months.
Both leaders also decided to next week resume negotiations on the disputed Nile dam becoming built by Ethiopia.
There is no immediate word on the resumption of talks from Egypt which, like Sudan, is downstream from the dam.
Cairo has been part of these negotiations since they started out a decade ago.
Mr Hamdok was along with a high-level delegation that included many security experts.
With him were the armed forces’ deputy chief of staff, the heads of the military and general intelligence agencies, and the acting foreign minister.
Sudan has struggled to feed and shelter tens of thousands of Tigrayans who've escaped fighting within their region since November to seek sanctuary in its east.
The number of refugees has reached about 50,000 and was likely to reach 200,000 in months if the fighting continued between federal forces and separatist rebels.
The occurrence of so many Tigrayan refugees could drag Sudan in to the conflict, which has ethnic undertones and will probably have far-reaching consequences for the delicate balance between Ethiopia’s rival ethnic and religious groups.
Analysts in Sudan experience warned that the Tigrayan rebels and their leaders would hide among the tens of thousands of refugees found in eastern Sudan, that could also be used as a route for arms smuggling into Tigray.
Mr Hamdok, whose long career as a good UN economist meant he spent time and effort in Addis Ababa before becoming prime minister this past year, is known to have very good relations with Mr Abiy.
The Ethiopian head played a key role in months of negotiations between Sudan’s pro-democracy movement and its top generals following the removal of dictator Omar Al Bashir in April 2019.
His mediation produced a power-sharing agreement in August this past year while considerably raising his profile found in Africa.
Mr Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 to make peace with longtime enemy and neighbor Eritrea.
But Sudan remains alarmed by the hydroelectric dam Ethiopia has almost completed on the Blue Nile, a short distance away from the Sudanese border.
Sudan believes its hydroelectric dams, especially the one at Roseires, will be damaged if a great agreement on filling and operating the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam weren't reached.
Decades-long negotiations between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have didn't produce an agreement.
Addis Ababa has insisted that it would only agree to a set of guidelines, not really a legally binding deal.
The Blue Nile starts in Ethiopia’s highlands and makes up about 85 % of the Nile’s water after it meets the White Nile in Khartoum, and travels north into Egypt and all the way to the Mediterranean.
Sudan last month suspended its participation found in the talks after Egypt and Ethiopia rejected its demand that African water and river experts assume a more active role found in the negotiations.
The other day, Sudanese officials from the foreign and water ministries briefed the heads of foreign diplomatic missions on Khartoum about the talks.
Sudan wanted a great agreement that provided it with its “full right” to get access to info on the filling and operation of the dam.
“Not providing that poses great danger to the safety of its people and its strategic installations in the Blue Nile,” said a briefing statement for African leaders, published simply by the state Suna news agency.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com