Qatar's Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani (Photo: Reuters)
Qatar's foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani has left Cairo for Addis Ababa after attending a meeting of Arab League representatives on the situation in Syria's Aleppo on Monday evening.
The Qatari official is set to meet on Tuesday with the Ethiopian president, prime minister and foreign minister to discuss the latest regional and international developments, according to a statement published on the Ethiopian foreign ministry’s website.
Ethiopia and Qatar resumed diplomatic and economic ties in 2014 after four years of severed relations over Addis Ababa accusing Doha of backing opposition groups in the East African country.
Relations between Ethiopia and Arab Gulf countries have been witnessing improvement in recent months, with Ethiopia receiving a number of Saudi and Qatari officials.
In 2015, Qatar launched investments worth $500 million in factories and industrial facilities in Ethiopia.
The Qatari FM’s visit to Ethiopia comes three days after a visit by an official Saudi delegation headed by Ahmed Al-Khateeb, senior advisor to the Saudi royal court and board chairman of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD). Al-Khateeb met with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn in Addis Ababa.
The Saudi delegation visited the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) construction site and met with the chief engineer, discussing the current state of the project.
The 6,000-megawatt dam, which is nearly 70 percent complete, is situated close to Ethiopia's border with Sudan. Ethiopia hopes it will be able to export energy generated by the dam.
Egypt has expressed concerns that the dam might reduce the amount of Nile Water it receives.
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