CAIRO, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aty held talks on Wednesday with U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) built on the Nile River, said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The Egyptian ministry said the meeting was held "in order to discuss the developments of the GERD file and the Egyptian position in this regard" without adding further details.

Recent tripartite negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia failed to reach a legally binding agreement on the rules of filling and operating the GERD.

Ethiopia, an upstream Nile basin country, carried out the first phase of filling the dam unilaterally in July 2020 and is planning to go ahead with the second phase in July this year despite the concerns of Egypt and Sudan.

Ethiopia started building the GERD in 2011, while Egypt is concerned the dam might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of the Nile water. Sudan has also raised similar concerns over the dam. Enditem

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