NEW YORK, 18 March, 2021 (TON): A UN Spokesman, Stephane Dujarric confirmed the UN’s readiness to facilitate agreement over the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile river between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt.

On Wednesday, while addressing the media, Stephanie Dujarric asserted that the UN received a letter from the Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdok on the very issue.

He said in a statement, "We reiterate our readiness to support all efforts toward reaching an agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.”

"Guterres welcomes initiatives to move the negotiations forward and awaits agreement from all the parties as to how the UN can best support the process," he added.

He further added that the three parties should agree on mediation before the UN gets involved.

Ethiopia, however, an upstream Nile basin country, started building the $4 billion GERD in 2011, while Egypt is concerned that the dam might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of the Nile water, while, Sudan has recently been raising similar concerns over the dam.