Senior Pakistanis diplomat flays India stand on water at UN meet

A senior Pakistani diplomat has told a UN-related event on global water scarcity that India had created an unprecedented crisis for Pakistan’s water security and regional stability by “unilaterally” holding in abeyance the 1960 Indus Water Treaty which regulated water sharing between the two neighbours.

“This is not natures doing; This is a nation state deliberately weaponising water,” Ambassador Usman Jadoon, acting permanent representative of Pakistan, said at the roundtable discussion co-hosted by the Nations University (UNU) and the Canadian Mission to the UN on Tuesday, as he highlighted the material breaches; including unannounced disruptions of downstream flows and withholding of hydrological information that followed India’s action on the six-decades-old treaty.

“Pakistan’s position is unequivocal; the Treaty remains legally intact and permits no unilateral suspension or modification,” he said.

The event followed after the release by UN researchers of their flagship report on ‘Global Water Bankruptcy,’ which calls for fundamental reset of global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins.

The Indus River Basin, the Pakistani envoy said, sustains one of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation systems, provides over 80 percent of Pakistan’s agricultural water needs, and supports the lives and livelihoods of over 240 million people, with the time-tested Treaty’s framework providing for equitable and predictable management of the waters.

“We are a semi-arid, climate-vulnerable, lower-riparian country facing floods, droughts, accelerated glacier melt, groundwater depletion, and rapid population growth; all of which are placing immense pressure on already stressed water systems,” Ambassador Jadoon said.

On its part, he said, Pakistan is strengthening its water resilience through integrated planning, flood protection, irrigation rehabilitation, groundwater replenishment, and ecosystem restoration, including through initiatives such as “Living Indus” and “Recharge Pakistan” to meet the challenges facing it.

Agencies