Pakistan renews charge of India 'weaponising' water amid Indus treaty standoff

Pakistan on Thursday accused India of attempting to use shared river waters as a “strategic asset,” rejecting New Delhi's decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance and alleging that it was seeking to control the flow of rivers for political purposes.

Speaking at the weekly Foreign Office briefing, spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan rejected what he described as India's attempt to cite terrorism allegations as justification for suspending the landmark water-sharing agreement.

"The real issue is not terrorism. The real issue is the growing disposition within the Indian leadership to treat a shared international river system as a strategic asset that can be controlled, withheld or diverted at will," Andrabi said.

India placed the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance as part of a series of measures announced after the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam last year, in which several people were killed. The treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs the sharing of waters from the Indus river system between the two countries.

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Andrabi said that Pakistan rejected “India’s attempt to invoke baseless allegations of terrorism as a pretext for placing the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance and obstructing the lawful flow of the Pakistani share.” “Let this be very clear: the real issue is not terrorism. The real issue is the growing disposition within the Indian leadership to treat a shared international river system as a strategic asset that can be controlled, withheld or diverted at will,” he alleged.

Andrabi said that water is not a tool of coercion or political pressure and any attempt to deny Pakistan its legitimate share of water under the IWT constituted a clear violation of the international legal obligations undertaken by India.

Under the IWT, brokered by the World Bank, Pakistan received the entire flows from the three western rivers, Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, while India had complete rights over the three eastern rivers, Sutlej, Beas and Ravi.

The spokesman also mentioned a seminar titled “International Seminar on Indus Waters Treaty: An Instrument of Peace and Regional Stability” held in Islamabad on Tuesday, and reminded how different participants supported the IWT and “rejected weaponisation of water.”

Andrabi also quoted Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as saying at the seminar that the IWT could not be suspended or terminated under any pretext and that the abeyance by India was “illegal, unilateral and without any basis.” When asked if the seminar would help Pakistan from becoming a barren land, Andrabi said: “No country can do that. Not India, not any other country has the power to do that.”

With inputs from agencies