ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, while criticising India for persistently violating the Indus Waters Treaty, has said that India has stopped abiding by the treaty.
He expressed these views on Tuesday, while addressing a ceremony, at the Institute of Strategic Studies.
The foreign minister said that Pakistan abides by the treaty, India should do the same.
“It is in interest of both India and Pakistan [to honour the treaty],” said Asif.
Various projects constructed by India are in violation of the treaty and the country never provided their designs to Pakistan, he said.
India has been damaging Pakistan’s hydel and agricultural projects, Asif concluded.
Pakistan and India share the waters of Indus River Basin which has been a major bone of contention between the two states since independence.
In order to resolve the disputes, both countries signed IWT in 1960 brokered by the World Bank which has survived over five decades of hostilities between the two states.
However, due to the recent indigenous upsurge in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), water has once again become a divisive issue.
Indian statement “blood and water cannot flow together” and the threat of abolishing the treaty has resulted in a new wave of hydro politics around Pakistan and brought IWT under stress.