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Africa Intelligence
SPOTLIGHT SUDAN ETHIOPIA EGYPT Issue dated 30/04/2021
Emirates seek to mediate between Sisi, Abiy, and Hamdock over GERD mega-dam
READ THIS ARTICLE IN OUR RUNNING STORY “THE RENAISSANCE DAM – A NATIONAL SYMBOL BUT A REGIONAL QUANDARY”
Emirati Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed has already offered to mediate between Sudan and Ethiopia in their dispute over the Al Fashaqa border region. He is now hoping to use his influence over the Egyptian, Sudanese, and Ethiopian regimes to try to resolve their thorny conflict over the Grand Renaissance Ethiopian Dam.
UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. ©Simon Dawson/Reuters
The initiative was many weeks in preparation (Africa Intelligence, 29/03/21). UAE crown prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MbZ) made a very brief visit to Cairo on 24 April to meet President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. During a two-hour face-to-face meeting with the Egyptian leader, MbZ offered to mediate between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in their dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), according to minutes of the meeting taken by UAE diplomats. The offer comes less than three months before Ethiopia is set to begin the second phase of reservoir-filling.
Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum are all beholden to the crown prince. The Emirates provide all three countries with financial, diplomatic, and military support (both Ethiopia's and Egypt's central banks recently saw the UAE replenish their foreign exchange reserves). MbZ told the Egyptian president that, in exchange for a softening of his position on GERD, the Emirates would finance additional energy projects in Egypt and would back the reclamation of agricultural land, especially in Sinai, where extreme poverty delivers many young people into the hands of a local jihadist movement.
According to Emirati diplomatic sources, MBZ is expected to make the same proposal to Ethiopia, and to offer financing for various agricultural projects in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, where the dam is located.
Demand for legal agreement is stumbling block
Sisi was receptive to the proposals but has refused to abandon Cairo's main demand, namely the signing of a legally binding agreement between Egypt and Ethiopia on the rules on filling the dam. MbZ sees the demand as unrealistic. Even US diplomats failed last year to get Ethiopia to make that concession.
The crown prince pushed in his meeting with Sisi for a long-term solution in which major Emirati development programmes would reward mutual compromise. Such a solution, which places the Emirates in the position of political-financial arbitrator, would also have the advantage of avoiding humiliation for either party.
But the undertaking has many potential pitfalls. Sudan, which has been aligned with Egypt on the issue, abruptly cancelled a planned trip to Cairo this week by its Foreign Minister Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi.
Increasingly clear differences have emerged between Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and the chairman of the Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who happens to be Egypt's main interlocutor in Khartoum.
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Reproduction and dissemination prohibited (Intranet...) without written permission. - 109639078
READ THIS ARTICLE IN OUR RUNNING STORY “THE RENAISSANCE DAM – A NATIONAL SYMBOL BUT A REGIONAL QUANDARY”
ON THE SAME SUBJECT
SPOTLIGHT SUDAN ETHIOPIA 29/03/2021
Abu Dhabi's al-Fashaqa mediation is Act One of a long game of influence
Four months in the making, the UAE's February offer to mediate between its Sudanese and Ethiopian allies in their dispute over the fertile al-Fashaqa border region looks like the first step in a major diplomatic foray across eastern Africa. [...]
Ethiopian foreign affairs minister Gedu Andargachew.
ETHIOPIA 04/09/2020
Addis Ababa bolsters diplomatic route in attempt to rekindle dialogue with Cairo and Washington
The heated Nile dam dispute is still top of Gedu Andargachew's list of concerns. The Ethiopian foreign minister took advantage of the presence of his envoys in Addis to add muscle to his diplomatic blitz. [...]
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SPOTLIGHT SUDAN 07/06/2019
Balance of power in Khartoum swings to Cairo-Abu Dhabi-Riyadh axis
Building on the meeting organised on 17 May by the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Tibor Nagy, on 21 June Berlin will host diplomats from the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union, the Intergovernmental Authority [. [...]
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SUDAN
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Abdel Fattah al-Burhan
GERD
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi
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