Sudan Is Reconsidering Ethiopia’s Sovereignty over Benishangul Region
Sudan said it’d reconsider Ethiopia’s sovereignty over the Benishangul region, where the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is made if Addis Ababa continues to disavow international agreements.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry denounced statements by Ethiopian officials who rejected the “colonial agreements” – a regard to the 1902 and therefore the 1959 border treaties.
The ministry stressed that the “irrational complacency in using these misleading claims and disavowing previous agreements also means compromising Ethiopia’s sovereignty over the Benishangul region, which was transferred from Sudan under a number of these agreements.”
The claim that the relevant agreements are an “insignificant colonial legacy is a particular fallacy of historical facts,” read the statement, indicating that Ethiopia was an independent sovereign state and a member of the international community at the time of the conclusion of these agreements.
The ministry warned that rejecting previous agreements compromises Ethiopia’s sovereignty over the Benishangul.
Benishangul was transferred from Sudan to Ethiopia in 1902 consistent with the agreements.
Moreover, the ministry told Ethiopia that the introduction of other issues into the GERD discussion isn’t productive and obstructs negotiations in an effort to impose de facto policies that don’t serve the problems of excellent neighborliness and therefore the security and stability of the region.
Sudan has started mobilizing global and regional public support to continue serious negotiations to succeed in a binding legal agreement over the dam.
Over the past two days, Sudanese secretary of state Maryam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi visited Kenya and Rwanda, as a part of an African tour to harness support within the negotiations.
Al-Mahdi called on African leaders and therefore the African Union (AU) to pressure Ethiopia into reaching a binding agreement between Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt.
Last week, the Sudanese secretary of state held meetings with the EU and AU ambassadors in Khartoum, during which they discussed the negotiations.
Border tension between Sudan and Ethiopia escalated during the conflict within the Tigray region, after Ethiopian forces and militias attacked Sudanese forces inside their territory, killing three people and a high-ranking officer.
As a result, the Sudanese army redeployed within its territory and regained control of quite 80 percent of the areas where Ethiopians were present for several years.
Sudan has threatened to sue the Ethiopian government and therefore the Italian company implementing the dam if the filling is completed for the second year, without reaching a legal agreement.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed committed to the second filling during the approaching season , stressing that the country will overcome the challenges.
In a message on Easter Sunday , Ahmed asserted that his country will complete the second filling as scheduled next July, saying some countries, which didn’t name, try to obstruct Addis Ababa .
Meanwhile, former aide to the Egyptian secretary of state Ambassador Gamal Bayoumi told Asharq Al-Awsat that attempts to make a political crisis complicate reaching an agreement.
He acknowledged that Addis Ababa’s actions during the negotiations reveal that it doesn’t harbor good intentions.
The Ethiopian government recently announced it will start the second phase of filling the reservoir with about 13.5 billion cubic meters. The first phase was completed in July 2020.
