President Felix Tshisekedi proposes consensual programme on issue of big Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Kinshasa, DR Congo (PANA) - President Felix Tshisekedi Monday proposed a consensual programme on the issue of the Big Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, an official source said here.
This was contained in his speech at the opening at the Congo river Hotel here of the ministerial Kinshasa conference on "The continuation of tripartite negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on the Big Ethiopian Renaissance Dam".
The Public Relations office of the DR Congolese presidency said that while reminding the previous initiatives taken by his African peers around this issue, President Tshisekedi showed optimism with this happy ending for the project which, according to him, should be "a source of living and peace".
"I solemnly think that the decade of meetings and negotiations was not a lost decade. On the contrary, it helped pave the way, better look at and understand our concerns, apprehensions and respective agreements," said the current chairman of the African Union.
"The Nile River must remain a fecund source of living and shared prosperity in a win-win process that respects the mutual and reciprocal interests of the concerned Governments and Peoples," he added.
President Tshisekedi reminded his distinguished guests of the two rounds of negotiations held by his predecessor as AU chairman, President Cyril Ramaphosa, which enabled him to produce the first accord, indicating the positions of parties which proposed a way out of the problem.
He said it was his desire to "consolidate the gains from that beginning of solution, overcome divergences and move forward".
"The continuation of the tripartite negotiations in Kinshasa has the advantage to take those negotiations out of the virtual circle to a physical ’face-to-face meeting', as expressed by many.
"It can be considered as important step and turning point, but it will be true and capital opportunity only through the content all of us together will give it, if we have the determination and courage to overcome obstacles,". he stated.
The Kinshasa meeting sets itself the goal to "trigger a new dynamic that should enable us to take further steps and consolidate them, particularly through the establishment of consensual action plan, setting the goals, periodicity and venues of our meetings, by taking into consideration temporal constraints," President Tshisekedi said.
-0- PANA KON/IS/MSA/RA 5Apr2021
