Pakistan's appeal to India: Rethink suspension of Indus Waters Treaty

NEW DELHI: Feeling the heat of India’s decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance, Pakistan has appealed to India to reconsider it citing the dependence of millions of people on the water being regulated by the 1960 treaty.The appeal is learnt to have been made in a letter by the secretary of Pakistan's ministry of water resources, Syed Ali Murtaza, to India’s Jal Shakti ministry secretary Debashree Mukherjee. The tone of the letter is, however, not completely placatory, with Pakistan calling India's decision “unilateral and illegal” and “equivalent to an attack on the people of Pakistan and its economy”.Significantly, the letter, sources indicated, was likely to have been delivered during Operation Sindoor.New Delhi refrained from commenting on the “appeal”. However, sources said that it was not going to have any effect on the decision the cabinet committee on security took on April 23 to put the treaty on hold as a retaliation against the killing of tourists in Pahalgam. When asked, sources in the govt referred to PM Modi’s “blood and water cannot flow together” assertion in his address to the nation on Monday.On its part, India has rejected the charge that the decision to keep the treaty in suspension was “illegal”.Pak facing pinch of irregular flow ahead of sowing seasonSources said the treaty does provide for a reconsideration because of the change of circumstances and the threshold has been reached due to Pakistan using terrorism as a tool to hurt India.“The treaty was negotiated in a spirit of goodwill and good neighbourliness. That is why we persisted with it despite the fact that it was flawed and loaded against India. However, Pakistan’s refusal to rein in the terrorists has knocked the very premise underpinning the treaty,” said a senior source.Moreover, climate change and other ground realities also require a relook at the design of the dams and other infrastructure that are in place, and this also fulfils the criteria of “change of circumstances” in the treat, highly placed sources said, signalling India’s resolve not to reconsider.India in the past few days had undertaken flushing and desilting of reservoirs of two run-of-the-river hydropower projects — Baglihar and Salal — on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in the obstruction and irregularity of water flow downstream.Since India after suspending the treaty is not under any obligation to share any data with Pakistan on water flow after flushing or opening of gates, the neighbouring country has been facing the pinch of irregular flow ahead of the upcoming sowing season.