'Profound consequences': Indus Water Treaty must not be weaponised, FM Dar warns India

WASHINGTON: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday warned that any attempt to deprive Pakistan of waters “rightfully allocated to it” under the Indus Waters Treaty would have “profound consequences for regional peace and security”.

The IWT has come under strain since India announced in 2025 that it was placing its treaty obligations in abeyance. The announcement followed an attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 tourists — an incident New Delhi blamed on Islamabad without evidence. For its part, Pakistan strongly denied the allegations and called for a neutral investigation.

In his virtual address to a Washington seminar on “The Indus Waters Treaty: South Asian Security at the Crossroads”, he declared that Pakistan would strongly safeguard its “legitimate rights and interests” under the treaty and international law.

FM Dar said the 1960 agreement remained “valid, binding and fully operative” despite India’s unilateral decision in April 2025 to place it “in abeyance”.

“The treaty contains no provision permitting either party to unilaterally suspend or place it in abeyance,” he said, adding that neither country could, “through a unilateral political declaration, extinguish obligations solemnly undertaken under international law.”

FM Dar said the issue went beyond the bilateral relationship, arguing that it concerned “the sanctity of treaties” and “confidence in international law”.

“If solemn treaty obligations can simply be set aside whenever political relations deteriorate, the very purpose of concluding the treaties is undermined,” he said.

He also stressed that geography made cooperation unavoidable, noting that “states cannot alter the direction in which rivers flow”.

“That is precisely why rules matter,” FM Dar said, urging the international community to preserve treaty-based water governance in South Asia.

The foreign minister further said the treaty had survived wars, military crises, diplomatic breakdowns and prolonged political tensions for more than six decades because both countries had understood that water on which “hundreds of millions of lives depend” was too fundamental to be subjected to fluctuations in political relations.

“Today, however, that principle faces its gravest challenge,” he said.

FM Dar said Pakistan’s position was clear and consistent and that treaty-based proceedings had continued despite India’s assertion of “abeyance”, reinforcing the principle that “unilateral action cannot displace an agreed legal framework”.

Pakistan has pursued arbitration over disputes concerning Indian hydroelectric projects on the Western Rivers, particularly Kishenganga and Ratle.

The Court of Arbitration at The Hague has continued proceedings, with earlier rulings addressing its jurisdiction and questions concerning the interpretation and application of the treaty.

The treaty allocates the three eastern rivers to India and the three western rivers, including the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, primarily to Pakistan, subject to specified Indian uses.

FM Dar said resorting to the Permanent Indus Commission, a neutral expert or a Court of Arbitration “is not an act of confrontation” but “the implementation of the very legal framework to which both countries agreed and are bound”.

“Pakistan has consistently sought to resolve differences through dialogue, diplomacy and the mechanisms provided under the Treaty,” he said.

He said the dispute was especially serious because Pakistan’s agriculture, food security, energy production, livelihoods and economic development depended heavily on the Indus River system.

“The Indus Basin is the lifeline of more than 250 million Pakistanis,” Dar said. “Water security for Pakistan is therefore inseparable from economic security, food security and, ultimately, national security.”

Against this backdrop, he warned that unilateral interference with the treaty could affect not only South Asian stability but also create “a dangerous precedent for treaty relations everywhere”.

“International agreements derive their value from certainty and predictability,” FM Dar said. “If solemn treaty obligations can simply be set aside whenever political relations deteriorate, the very purpose of concluding the treaties is undermined.”

He linked the dispute to climate change, saying Pakistan was already among the world’s most water-stressed countries and faced changing precipitation patterns, glacial retreat, floods, droughts and increasing hydrological variability.

“These realities should compel greater and stronger cooperation,” he said, calling for improved data-sharing, sustained technical engagement and greater transparency.

“But,” he added, “adaptation cannot mean abandonment of agreed legal rights and obligations”.

Dar added that the treaty’s dispute-settlement architecture had been designed precisely to withstand disagreements between the two countries.

“The answer to disagreement was therefore built into the Treaty itself: dialogue, technical engagement and lawful dispute resolution,” he said.

The foreign minister also emphasised that treaty implementation “was never made contingent upon political convenience”.

For Pakistan, he said, the preferred approach remained “law over unilateralism, dialogue over confrontation, and cooperation over coercion”.

At the same time, Dar sought to make clear that Islamabad considered its water rights a matter of vital national importance.

“Any attempt to deprive Pakistan of the waters rightfully allocated to it under the Indus Waters Treaty would have profound consequences for regional peace and security,” he said.

“Pakistan will safeguard its legitimate rights and interests under the treaty and international law.”

Dar further stated that the Indus Waters Treaty had demonstrated for more than 65 years that Pakistan and India could insulate a vital shared resource from their wider political relationship.

“That achievement should not be dismantled. It should be preserved,” he said.

He proposed three principles for the way forward: that the treaty be “respected and implemented in letter and spirit”; that all questions, differences and disputes be addressed through its mechanisms; and that Pakistan and India restore and strengthen “technical engagement, transparency and data-sharing”.

“These are not unreasonable demands,” Dar said. “They are the requirements of an agreement solemnly concluded by two sovereign states and sustained for more than six decades.”

He also invoked Pakistan’s recent diplomatic role in facilitating dialogue during the US-Iran crisis, saying the effort reflected Islamabad’s belief that difficult disputes should ultimately be addressed through “engagement, diplomacy and peaceful settlement”.

“Pakistan seeks to be a force for peace and stability, in South Asia and beyond,” he said.

Dar concluded by urging that the Indus remain “a source of life, livelihood and civilisation, not a fault line for confrontation”.

“Shared waters must never be weaponised,” he said. “They should remain a bridge between nations, governed by law, sustained through cooperation, and protected for generations to come.”