KHARTOUM, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Sudan on Monday urged Ethiopia to accept a mediation quartet regarding the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

"Ethiopia should accept the mediation quartet of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and the African Union to reach a fair and legal agreement," said Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasir Abbas at a celebration of the World Water Day in the capital Khartoum.

Ethiopia earlier announced its decision to reject the mediation quartet.

In February, Ethiopia said it would carry on with the second-phase 13.5-billion-cubic-meter filling of the GERD in June.

The volume of the first-phase filling last year was 4.9 billion cubic meters.

Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have been in talks for years over the technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of the GERD.

Ethiopia, which started building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the dam project, while Egypt and Sudan, downstream Nile Basin countries that rely on the river for its freshwater, are concerned that the dam might affect their share of the water resources. Enditem

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