Egypt and Sudan have agreed to Kenya's request to call off a regional water meeting to 17 December, according to Hisham Qandil, Egypt's Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation. Ministers from Nile Basin countries are slated to attend the event. The meeting, to be hosted in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, was previously scheduled for 29 October. Kenya's Ministry of Water and Irrigation said it requested postponement after Kenya's president tasked the minister with handling domestic concerns. The meeting is supposed to tackle issues surrounding the framework agreement signed by six upstream countries for redistributing Nile water shares. In April 2010, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda signed the framework agreement in Entebbe. They were joined by Burundi in March 2011. Sudan and Egypt opposed the deal, as it endangers their historical water shares granted by a bilateral agreement in 1959. The December meeting will seek to lessen the disagreements and facilitating collaboration among Nile Basin states. Translated from the Arabic Edition
