Pakistan has once again tried to provoke India over its decision to place the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) between New Delhi and Islamabad in abeyance.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during an event in Islamabad, threatened India, warning it against taking any steps that could affect Islamabad’s water rights under the suspended treaty, saying “every single drop” of Pakistan’s water is a “red line.”
“I declare in clear terms that every single drop of Pakistan’s water is our red line. Beginning in Tibet, the Indus River flows through Kashmir before traversing the entire length of Pakistan. It allocates the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) to Pakistan and the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) to India. At the same time, it allows each country certain uses of the rivers allocated to the other.
The Indus Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank in 1960, has governed the use of the Indus River and its tributaries between India and Pakistan since then. The treaty gives India 20 per cent of the water from the Indus River System and the remaining 80 per cent to Pakistan.
If India does not come to its senses, it will be responded to directly,’ the Pakistani premier said. He also labelled New Delhi as an “enemy of peace” for “unilaterally and illegally suspending the Indus Waters Treaty. The treaty was put into “abeyance” by New Delhi after the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025 that killed 26 civilians as a punitive measure, as it blamed Pakistan-sponsored terrorists for the attack.
With the suspension of the treaty, India has stopped sharing the water level data in the three rivers with Pakistan. During monsoons, India’s early warnings about rising waters in the three rivers had helped Pakistan issue timely evacuation warnings to people living in low-lying areas in the Punjab and Sindh provinces.
