Pakistan writing back to back letters to India

Pakistan is staring at a water crisis after India suspended the decades-old Indus Water Treaty indefinitely following the Pahalgam attack in which 26 tourists were killed.

Following the suspension, Pakistan has written four letters, one after another, requesting India to reconsider its decision to keep the Water Treaty under suspension. Sources said that even after India launched Operation Sindoor to strike at terror infrastructure in the neighbouring country and PoK, Pakistan wrote a letter on the IWT, sources said.

After the Pahalgam attack, India made it clear that terror and trade cannot go together and blood and water also can’t flow together. The World Bank-brokered Indus Water Treaty was inked on September 19, 1960, in good faith and friendship but Pakistan acted against its spirit by promoting cross-border terrorism.

According to sources, the four letters urging India to reinstate the IWT were sent by Pakistan’s Ministry of Water Resources Secretary Syed Ali Murtaza to the Jal Shakti Ministry, after which they were forwarded to the External Affairs Ministry.

Considering the security of the nation, India has made it clear that the treaty will remain in abeyance until Islamabad “credibly and irrevocably” ends its support for cross-border terrorism. The move was endorsed by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) immediately after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.

With India’s retaliation to the attack through Operation Sindoor, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed willingness to engage in peace talks with India to resolve ongoing disputes between the two countries. According to reports, several Pakistani politicians made a desperate appeal to the Shehbaz Sharif government to resolve the water crisis looming large on the country after India suspending the IWT.

Indus Basin is the lifeline for Pakistan as three-fourths of water for the nation is sourced from outside the country. Nine out of 10 people depend on the Indus water basin for their living, as much as 90 per cent of crops rely on this water, apart from power projects and dams built on the rivers. The IWT governs the sharing of the waters of six rivers – Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej – flowing on the borders between India and Pakistan.

Despite Pakistan violating the IWT by going against its spirit through numerous terrorist attacks and obstructing the updating of the infrastructure to ensure its safety, India has displayed extraordinary patience. It may be recalled that India had formally asked Islamabad on several occasions in the last two years to discuss modifications of the treaty, but to no avail.