Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has warned that India’s decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance has created a new challenge for Islamabad, saying Pakistan now faces the possibility of India using water as a weapon by withholding supplies when they are needed for crops and releasing them when they are not.
India Suspends Treaty Following Security Meeting
On April 23, the Cabinet Committee on Security convened in response to a recent attack. Subsequently, India declared that the treaty would be suspended. Officials in New Delhi stated that the conditions under which the treaty was originally negotiated have significantly changed, warranting this decision.
He warned that Pakistan would respond if India threatened its water supplies, adding that any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty would draw a strong response. The government has described keeping the treaty in abeyance as part of the measures taken in response to the Pahalgam attack. “India’s position on the Indus Water Treaty is consistent. The IWT stands in abeyance in response to Pakistan’s continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism.
“It’s untouchable because it is an international agreement and this time around the Indian government has unilaterally held it in abeyance and that sort of creates a new challenge that first time probably water has been weaponized in modern history and we now face this threat that you know they can use water as a weapon to deny Pakistan water when it needs for its crops and release it when we don’t need it,” he said at an Asia Society event. The issue was also raised by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the eve of the country’s Independence Day, when he warned India against threatening Pakistan’s water supplies and said Islamabad would give a “direct response” if its access to water was jeopardised. Speaking at an event, Sharif said Pakistan wanted peace and not war, but cautioned that its desire for peace should not be mistaken for weakness. “Every drop of water is our red line,” Sharif said, as quoted in a report by the Associated Press. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also defended the decision, saying that “water and blood cannot flow together”. Pakistan must credibly and irrevocably abjure its support for cross-border terrorism,” Jaiswal had said.
