Sudan refutes Ethiopian allegations on Renaissance Dam

The Spokesperson of the Negotiating Team for Renaissance Dam, Omar Al-Faroug Sayed Kamil has issued a press statement commenting on the letter of the Ethiopian Foreign Minister to the President of the UN Security Council dated June 28, 2012.

The Spokesperson said the letter did not convey in an honest and transparent way the current situation of the negotiations on the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the slowness and statement that characterized it in the backdrop of ineffectiveness of its methodology that had prevented reaching the logical and objective results during the last ten years to achieve a binding legal agreement on the filling and operation of the Renaissance Dam in a manner that preserves the interests of the three parties.

The letter of the Ethiopian Foreign Minister began more prejudiced against Sudan, due to Sudan’s exercise of its natural right as a member of the United Nations, and its explicit request from the Security Council to hold a session on the developments of the dispute over the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and its impact on the safety and security of millions of Sudanese, and urged all parties to abide by their obligations under international law and refraining from taking any unilateral measures, and calling on Ethiopia in particular to stop unilaterally filling the Renaissance Dam before reaching a binding legal agreement, which aggravates the conflict and poses a threat to regional and international peace and security.

The statement underlined that allegation by the Ethiopian side that the two downstream countries had aborted the previous round of negotiations was totally untrue, saying that the fact is that Ethiopia was the party that worked for preventing reaching a binding agreement through intransigence and buying time and by presenting impossible demands that has nothing to do with the rules of filling and operation of the dam.

The Spokesperson said the Ethiopian Foreign Minister had nothing to convince the Security Council except mere allegations.

The Ethiopian government attempted, through the letter, to evade any commitments pertinent to filling and operation of the dam , a matter that contravenes overtly the provisions of the international law and well-established international practice in the management of shared rivers.

He pointed out that Sudan renews its proposal on the importance of changing the current negotiation methodology and calls for enhancing the AU role to enable the parties to reach binding legal agreement in fixed time by involving international actors in the negotiation process.