KHARTOUM: Sudan is open to a partial interim agreement on Ethiopia’s multi-billion-dollar dam on the Blue Nile, with specific conditions, Irrigation Minister Yasir Abbas said on Monday.
While Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Egypt fears it will imperil its water supply and Sudan is concerned about the impact on its own water flows.
Sudan and Egypt agreed last week to coordinate efforts to push Ethiopia to negotiate “seriously” on an agreement on filling and operating the GERD.
Cairo and Khartoum had been aligned on the need for any agreement to be comprehensive, but Abbas’s comments mark a potential shift in Sudan’s position.
” conditions include the signing-off of everything that has already been agreed on in negotiations, ... provisions to ensure that the talks continue even after the filling scheduled for July, and the negotiations adhering to a definite timetable,” Abbas told a news conference, citing a time crunch.
Ethiopia has said it will begin a second filling of the reservoir behind the dam during the rainy season this summer.
Talks overseen by the African Union, aimed at reaching a binding agreement, have repeatedly stalled.
Sudan says it is open to conditional interim deal on Ethiopia dam
https://arab.news/vf2sc
Sudan says it is open to conditional interim deal on Ethiopia dam
- Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
- Sudan and Egypt agreed last week to coordinate efforts to push Ethiopia to negotiate "seriously"
The art of war: fears for masterpieces on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi
- UAE paid more than €1 billion to borrow priceless works, but experts in France want them back
PARIS: The Middle East war has raised fears for the safety of priceless masterpieces on loan from France to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the museum’s only foreign branch.
The Abu Dhabi museum, which opened in 2017, has so far escaped damage from nearly 1,800 Iranian drone and missile strikes launched since the conflict erupted on Feb. 28.
However, concerns are mounting in France. “The works must be removed,” said Didier Selles, who helped broker the original agreement between France and the UAE.
French journal La Tribune de l’Art echoed that alarm. “The Louvre’s works in Abu Dhabi must be secured!” it said.
France’s culture ministry said French authorities were “in close and regular contact with the authorities of the UAE to ensure the protection of the works loaned by France.”
Under the agreement with the UAE, France agreed to provide expertise, lend works of art and organize exhibitions, in return for €1 billion, including €400 million for licensing the use of the Louvre name. The deal was extended in 2021 to 2047 for an additional €165 million.
Works on loan include paintings by Rembrandt and Chardin, Classical statues of Isis, Roman sarcophagi and Islamic masterpieces: such as the Pyxis of Al-Mughira.
A Louvre Abu Dhabi source said the museum was designed to protect collections from both security threats and natural disasters.
