July 30, 2021 (Khartoum) Sudan renewed its position calling for the three parties in the Renaissance Dam issue to reach a legal and binding agreement on filling and operation. The Sudanese government stressed that the only way for the government to do so is to negotiate, provided that the current approach to negotiation changes, as the precedent failed under the leadership of the African Union, and the Ethiopian refusal to be the observers and the African Union itself as members of the negotiation process. At a press conference he held Wednesday on the Ethiopian unilateral trend for the second filling of Renaissance Dam, the Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Prof. Yasser Abbas, pointed to the contradiction that emerged between the information that Sudan received in an official letter from the Ethiopian Minister of Irrigation regarding water storage operations and what was revealed on the ground when the public events began, which confirms the importance of a legal and binding agreement so as avoid harm to any of the other partner countries in the Blue Nile. Sudan and Egypt. The minister stressed that Sudan still maintains its position on the benefits of the Renaissance Dam, a position that has not changed, but he warned that this dam, in the absence of specific and documented information about filling and operation, will threaten the lives of half the population of Sudan. Yasser Abbas pointed out that on the fifth of this month, Sudan received an official letter from Ethiopia confirming that the filling for the second year will have a volume of 13.5 billion cubic meters of water, while the reality is that the filling was only 4 billion cubic meters. The minister said that the Ethiopian letter also confirmed that the water will cross from the middle corridor of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam when the lake in front of the dam is filled in the first half of next August, while the reality has proven that it crossed in the current month of July, which means a disaster for Sudan had it not been because of the precautions Which is built on a work of engineering and prediction. The Minister praised the technical team that provided Sudan with information that is in fact better than the official information provided by neighboring Ethiopia to Sudan, and that it confirms the correctness of Sudan’s position on the importance of exchanging information about filling and operation. Eng. Wael Awad and Eng. Maysoon Ali, members of the Technical Committee of the Sudanese Negotiating Team on the Renaissance Dam, gave a detailed explanation about the stages of construction of the dam and the accurate information obtained by Sudan from non-Ethiopian sources, as well as the stages of filling the dam and the expected quantities of water either through the two gates that are now open Or when operating two turbines in the dam body, which is information that should have come from the Ethiopian government, legally and bindingly. The minister stressed that Sudan still maintains its position on the benefits of the Renaissance Dam, a position that has not changed, but he warned that this dam, in the absence of specific and documented information about filling and operation, will threaten the lives of half the population of Sudan. The Minister gave an example of the Roseires Dam and the dangers it would face in the event of conflicting information if it was based on the old annual predictions, while Ethiopia withholds or releases water from the dam without sharing information with Sudan. Yasser said that the legal and binding agreement will mean that Sudan will know how to use the Roseires reservoir, and in the absence of an agreement, Sudan will not be able to take storage policies in its reservoirs, especially Roseires, because it will not be able to k now whether Ethiopia will store 4 billion or 13 billion cubic meters. “In the absence of an agreement on filling and operation, this same dam will threaten half of Sudan’s population living on the banks of the Blue Nile and the main Nile.” The minister warned. “Sudan is not ready to enter into negotiations with the same methodology as before, because it means buying time, and Sudan fully believes that the only solution in the file of the Renaissance Dam is through serious negotiation that preserves the interests of the three countries” the minster concluded .