Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Sudanese officials are set to hold the third of four meetings on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Khartoum this weekend.

"The Saturday and Sunday meetings will continue consultations and discussions about the rules of filling and operating the dam," the Egyptian irrigation ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The Khartoum meeting is a part of a round of technical negotiations that started in November as a result of an agreement reached by the three countries that month after mediation from the US.

The three countries agreed to hold meetings in Addis Ababa, Cairo, Khartoum, and then in Addis Ababa again, to discuss the issues, with US officials and World Bank representatives attending as observers.

The three countries also agreed to resolve the outstanding technical issues on the filling and operation of the under-construction dam by 15 January 2020.

The agreement also stipulates that two additional meetings be held in the US, one in the middle of the negotiations and one at the end, to follow up on the process.

The first follow-up meeting was held in Washington last week.

Ethiopia began building the mega-dam in 2011 in a bid to provide electricity to more than half of its population and to become the continent's biggest power exporter.

Egypt fears that the speed of filling the Ethiopian dam’s reservoir will diminish its share of Nile water, which supplies 85 percent of the country’s freshwater.