(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury invited Ethiopia and
Egypt for talks as part of international efforts to quell a dispute over a giant dam that’s being built on the Nile River, according to Ethiopian officials.Ethiopia will take part in the Nov. 6 meeting that will also include mutual neighbor Sudan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nebiat Getachew said Thursday by text message. Egypt has already accepted an invitation for talks in the U.S. on the same date.The Voice of America reported last week that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had proposed the three countries and the World Bank’s president meet amid rising tensions over Ethiopia’s dam on the Blue Nile River, citing a letter it obtained. The World Bank’s office in Ethiopia didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.Accusations have flared in recent weeks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is set to be Africa’s biggest hydropower project when completed. Egypt and Ethiopia are striving to reach an agreement on how to fill the dam’s reservoir -- a process crucial to ensuring a reliable flow to Egypt, which depends on the Nile for almost all its fresh water.Neither U.S. Treasury nor U.S. embassies in the two countries could immediately comment. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Tuesday that his country would take part in the negotiations with Ethiopia and Sudan in
Washington to break a “deadlock” over the dam. He didn’t specify the Treasury’s involvement.Ethiopia Water Minister Sileshi Bekele, who confirmed Wednesday that his country had received the U.S. Treasury’s invitation, said the three African nations are already due to hold the sixth of nine planned technical meetings on filling and dam operations in the first half of November in Ethiopia.(Updates with Ethiopian Foreign Ministry comment from start.)\--With assistance from Abdel Latif Wahba.To contact the reporter on this story: Nizar Manek in Addis Ababa at nmanek2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn, Mark WilliamsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.