Indus Waters Treaty can't resume as is, future hinges on Pak ending terror: India
As clamour from across the border over the Indus Waters Treaty grows, India has hardened its stance, saying the 65-year-old pact will require a complete
As clamour from across the border over the Indus Waters Treaty grows, India has hardened its stance, saying the 65-year-old pact will require a complete overhaul and cannot continue in its current form, PTI reported, citing government sources. India has also made it clear that any future arrangement would require Pakistan to demonstrate that it has ended cross-border terrorism. In recent months, both Pakistan's military and political leadership have repeatedly warned India of consequences -- including the possibility of war and even the use of nuclear weapons -- if New Delhi were to completely stop the flow of water following its suspension of the treaty last year. Read Full Story The sources said any future reactivation of the river water-sharing provisions would require the treaty to be renegotiated in a modified format, and that such a step would depend on Islamabad permanently halting support for terrorism directed against India. They also said India is not actively looking to withdraw from the treaty at this stage, but retains the right as a sovereign state to terminate any treaty that is demonstrably against its interests. "It would be accurate to say that the IWT in its present form will not function again. If provisions related to river water sharing have to be reactivated, they have to be done in a different form, not in the present form. And only if Pakistan abjures terrorism," a source said. Another source said that any decision by India to revive the treaty would depend primarily on Pakistan's actions, including whether it stops cross-border terrorism.
"We haven't seen any evidence that they are making any effort in that direction," the source told PTI. New Delhi said that Pakistan is trying to push what they called a false narrative that India's decision to keep the treaty in abeyance is causing water scarcity, according to the PTI report. They said a significant volume of the water received by Pakistan is lost because of its own lack of storage infrastructure, widespread leakages and continuing water-sharing disputes among its provinces. On the question of a possible Indian exit from the treaty, another source told PTI, "It depends on the actions that Pakistan takes going forward." The sources said India put the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance as part of a series of punitive diplomatic and economic measures announced soon after the Pahalgam terror attack in April last year, in which 26 civilians were killed. Indian officials have said the attack was carried out by The Resistance Front, which they described as a proxy for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. In May, India carried out Operation Sindoor to target terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan in response to the attack. Under the World Bank-brokered Indus Waters Treaty, India has rights over the eastern rivers Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, while Pakistan controls the western rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. The pact gives both countries specified usage rights over each other's rivers, and also allows India to build run-of-river hydroelectric projects, such as Kishenganga and Ratle, on the western tributaries before they cross into Pakistan. India and Pakistan signed the treaty on September 19, 1960, after nine years of negotiations with the sole aim of managing cross-border rivers.
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