CAIRO — The Arab foreign ministers held an extraordinary meeting June 15 and called on the United Nations Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to discuss the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), while expressing concern about the stalled negotiations currently sponsored by the African Union (AU).

Egyptian and Sudanese diplomats and experts told Al-Monitor that this was the first time that Arabs took a stand to pressure Ethiopia in the GERD issue, in anticipation of internationalizing it once again at the Security Council.

Prior to the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting, Cairo and Khartoum had addressed letters to the Security Council to explain the developments in the GERD file, and to object to Ethiopia’s intentions to move forward with the second filling of the dam’s reservoir without reaching an agreement on the GERD’s filling and operation with the two downstream countries.

The meeting held in the Qatari capital, Doha, in the presence of 17 Arab foreign ministers, discussed the GERD issue after negotiations with Ethiopia reached a dead end in the last round of talks held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on April 4-5.