Pakistan, India should sort out IWT issue through dialogue: US

State Dept urges Pakistan, India to resolve any differences

 

Describing the Indus Waters Treaty as a model for peaceful cooperation, the US State Department on Tuesday urged Pakistan and India to resolve their differences.

At a weekly briefing at the US State Department, spokesman John Kirby confirmed that US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on December 29 in which the issue of Indus Waters Treaty came under discussion.

“The Indus Waters Treaty has served, as a model for peaceful cooperation between India and Pakistan for now 50 years,” he said, adding that the US encouraged Pakistan and India to resolve any differences.

Responding to a question, Kirby said the US administration was in regular communication with the Indian and Pakistani governments on a wide range of issues.

Pakistan has raised the issue of Indus Waters Treaty in the United Nations, an agreement which was brokered by the World Bank. The UN secretary general has also described the treaty as an example of positive cooperation.

Responding to a question about the recent dialogue between Russia, China and Pakistan on Afghanistan, the spokesman said the US welcomed any international effort to help Afghanistan become secure and more prosperous. “And we continue to support, as we always have, an Afghan-led reconciliation process. We still believe that’s the right way to go here going forward. That hasn’t changed,” he added.

When asked to comment about the holding of meeting without the Afghan government, the spokesman declined to comment on the specifics, but said such international efforts could be constructive. “But to the degree that countries are meeting to discuss the same secure, safe, prosperous Afghanistan that we all want to see and they can come up with ideas to pursue that, in keeping with mandates from the international community and in particular NATO, those can be, they could be constructive,” he added.