Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi speaks on during a press conference with his Russian counterpart (unseen) following their talks at the presidential palace in the capital Cairo on Dec 11, 2017. (Alexander Zemlianichenko / POOL / AFP)

CAIRO/KHARTOUM - Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said his country is committed to talks to resolve an impasse over the filling and operation of Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Nile’s main tributary.

READ MORE: Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan commit to resolving Nile dam dispute

“We are keen to reach a solution to the issue via negotiations,” Sisi said Tuesday in televised comments made at the opening of a new industrial city. He denounced suggestions in unspecified media about military action.

It marked Sisi’s first significant public comments on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam since talks between the two countries and mutual neighbor Sudan ended in mid-July without an agreed time-line for filling the reservoir. Shortly afterward, Ethiopia announced it had met its first-year filling target naturally due to heavy seasonal rains.

This handout picture taken on July 20, 2020 and released by Adwa Pictures on July 27, 2020 shows an aerial view of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River in Guba, northwest Ethiopia. (YIRGA MENGISTU / ADWA PICTURES / AFP)

Egypt, which depends on the Nile River for most of its water needs, is opposed to any development that may significantly impact the flow downstream, a position Sudan shares. Ethiopia is developing a 6,000-megawatt power plant at the site, and asserts the right to use the resource for its development.

At a new round of talks that kicked off on Monday to regulate the flow of water from the huge project, Egypt and Sudan criticized Ethiopia for what they called unilateral filling of its Blue Nile dam.

Sudan and Egypt both fear the US$4 billion hydroelectric dam could lead to water shortages in their own countries. The Blue Nile is a tributary of the Nile, from which Egypt's 100 million people get 90 percent of their fresh water.

Egypt and Sudan expressed concerns about the "unilateral filling" of Ethiopia's Blue Nile dam, which they said "cast a shadow on the meeting and raised many questions about the feasibility of the current course of negotiations and reaching a fair agreement", Egypt's Irrigation Ministry said in a statement

Almost a decade of tortuous negotiations have failed to yield an agreement to regulate how Ethiopia will fill the reservoir and operate the dam while protecting Egypt's scarce water supplies.

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The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is being built about 15 km from the border with Sudan on the Blue Nile, which provides the bulk of the water in the Nile after it meets the White Nile in Sudan.

Last week, Ethiopia, which says it needs the dam to generate electricity for its people, said it had already achieved its first-year target for filling the reservoir, thanks to a heavy rainy season.

Egypt and Sudan expressed concerns about the "unilateral filling", which they said "cast a shadow on the meeting and raised many questions about the feasibility of the current course of negotiations and reaching a fair agreement", Egypt's Irrigation Ministry said in a statement.

READ MORE: Nile talks founder, escalating tension between Africa powers

Sudan said Ethiopia's action was "a harmful and disturbing precedent in the course of cooperation between the countries concerned", according to a statement from its Irrigation Ministry.

There was no immediate word from Ethiopia. Among the issues at stake in the talks, being hosted by the African Union, are how the dam will operate during "dry years" of reduced rainfall, and whether the agreement and its mechanism for resolving disputes should be legally binding.

With Bloomberg inputs