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The Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya 鈥� The latest round of talks over a huge, highly contentious hydroelectric dam聽Ethiopia has built聽on the Nile River鈥檚 main tributary again ended with no deal, Ethiopia and Egypt said.

The countries blamed each other after three days of discussions in Addis Ababa concluded on Tuesday.

The talks were unsuccessful due to Ethiopia鈥檚 鈥減ersistent refusal鈥� to accept any compromise, according to Egypt鈥檚 ministry of water resources and irrigation. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian foreign ministry accused Egypt of putting up 鈥渞oadblocks鈥� in the discussions that prevented any consensus.

Sudan was also a part of the negotiations.

The countries for years have been聽聽over the , which Ethiopia began building in 2011. The dam is on the Blue Nile near the border with Sudan and Egypt fears it will have a devastating effect on its water and irrigation supply downstream unless Ethiopia takes its needs into account.

The Blue Nile meets the White Nile in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and then flows onward through Egypt.

Egypt has referred to Ethiopia鈥檚 dam as an existential threat because the Arab world鈥檚 most populous country relies almost entirely on the Nile to supply water for agriculture and its more than 100 million people.

Egypt is deeply concerned over how much water Ethiopia will release downstream from the dam and wants a deal to regulate that. Ethiopia is using the dam to generate electricity.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed聽聽to come to an agreement on the dam within four months. Another round of talks between the three countries in September聽also .

The dam began producing power last year and Ethiopia said it had completed the final phase of filling the dam鈥檚 reservoir in September.

The project is expected to ultimately produce over 6,000 megawatts of electricity, which is double Ethiopia鈥檚 current output and enough to make the East African nation of 120 million a net energy exporter.

Ethiopia has said it will continue to exploit the river with or without an agreement.