Pakistan warns India against using water for coercion

“The international community must assume a responsibility to develop, nurture and protect normative frameworks, at multilateral and bilateral levels, to ensure that states remain willing to resolve water issues cooperatively,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi said in her address to the UN Security Council during an open debate on water, peace and security. 

“It must promote bilateral and regional agreements on waterways; and once they are evolved, ensure that they are not undermined through unilateral or coercive measures,” Lodhi said as she described the India-Pak Indus Water Treaty of 1960, with the World Bank as guarantor, a model of what can be achieved through bilateral agreements. “But this Treaty is equally a good case study of what could go wrong if such agreements are not honoured or threatened by one of the state parties to be abrogated altogether. The international community must remain vigilant to any sign of unwillingness to maintain cooperation and avert any conflict,” Lodhi said.

The treaty sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two countries regarding their use of the rivers, known as the Permanent Indus Commission.