Rejecting Foreign Interference: Sudan’s Stand Against Imposition of External Agendas

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Al-Sadiq confirmed that there is some outside interference on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, who want to impose an agenda on Khartoum, which his country rejects. In statements to the Bahraini newspaper, Al-Watan, he said: “Unfortunately, there are now some outside interference who want to impose a certain agenda on us, and we are impressing ourselves, and this issue is totally unacceptable.” Al-Sadiq continued, stressing that “the issue of the Renaissance dam should be resolved between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and there is joint and permanent coordination between the three countries in this regard.” He underlined that «the United Arab Emirates hosted about 4 round of informal negotiations between the three countries on the Renaissance dam crisis, but have not achieved significant progress, especially in light of the insistence of the mediators to impose the so-called “water division”, especially as Egypt and Sudan have a position clear: they are against water sharing, and therefore it is clear that if the mediators insist on imposing the issue of water sharing, we will not reach an agreement. And the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Ali Al-Sadiq, added: “Therefore, we in Sudan we see that the only way to solve the Renaissance dam problem is negotiations between the three countries.” He explained: “There are two levels of negotiation between the three countries, and there is a technical level, and those who are interested at this level only talk about technical aspects such as dam and water safety and implications for transit and downstream countries, and have nothing to do with political work and political issues.” He continued: “There is a political, ministerial and legal level represented by the commissions, and whoever deals with this matter talks about the political and legal aspects, and so I believe that if this issue were left to you alone, there would be an agreement reached on the dam of the Renaissance.” Despite the signing of an agreement of principles between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in 2015, which defines dialogue and negotiation as mechanisms to solve all dam-related problems between the three countries, the subsequent round of negotiations failed to reach an agreement between the three countries on the water storage mechanism behind the dam and the mechanism for its operation. Ethiopia has completed two phases of the dam filling process in 2020 and 2021 and has already started the third filling process during the flood season that started last July. The failure to reach an agreement between the three countries resulted in an increase in political tensions between them and the transfer of the file to the Security Council, which held two sessions on the issue, without taking a decision in merit.