Egypt’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry and Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Aty  visited the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to discuss bilateral cooperation and issues of common interest including Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam, local media outlets reported.

Al-Ahram newspaper reported that Shoukry and Abdel-Aty met with their Sudanese counterparts, Maryam Sadiq Al-Mahdi and Yasser Abbas, as part of the ongoing efforts to strengthen the strategic relations that unite the two countries and discuss the Renaissance Dam  crisis.

This is the third visit by Shoukry to Khartoum since the start of the year. The Egyptian diplomat visited Sudan in March, accompanied by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, and later in April.

Egypt, which relies considerably on freshwater from the Nile, has voiced fears that the Ethiopian dam will negatively impact its water supply. Meanwhile, Ethiopia insists that the project is vital to bolster its economy by providing electricity, saying more than half of the country’s population do not have access to power.