Egypt hosts new round of talks on Ethiopian Nile dam

CAIRO

Egypt hosted a second round of talks with Ethiopia and Sudan on Monday on a multi-billion dam being built by Addis Ababa on the Nile.

The two-day meeting discusses the rules of filling and operating the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The trilateral meeting is the second of four rounds of talks as part of an agreement reached in a U.S.-brokered meeting between the three parties in Washington in November, which saw the attendance of representatives of the U.S. administration and the World Bank and aimed to break a deadlock in negotiations.

Ethiopia is building a $5 billion dam on the Blue Nile, a tributary of the Nile River, near the border with Sudan, saying the project is necessary to provide the country with much needed-electricity.

Egypt fears that the dam could stem the flow of the Nile, on which it depends for around 90 percent of its water supply.

Several months of negotiations between the two countries have failed to make any breakthrough, spurring fears of a military conflict between Cairo and Addis Ababa.

Sudan is set to host a third round of the talks on the dam project.

* Bassel Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara