Former foreign minister and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said India has the option to either share water fairly or “we will deliver water to us from all six (Indus river system) rivers”.
Delhi unilaterally suspended its participation in the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which governs the usage of the Indus river system, on April 23, shortly after 26 civilians were killed in India-held Kashmir. Delhi, without evidence, blamed Islamabad for the attack. The latter has denied the allegations and called for a neutral probe. The accord remains dormant despite a ceasefire agreed upon by the two nuclear-armed neighbours last month following their worst fighting in decades.
The Foreign Office (FO) on Saturday had slammed Indian Home Minister Amit Shah’s “brazen disregard” for international agreements after the latter said New Delhi would never restore the IWT with Pakistan.Speaking in the National Assembly during a session on the federal budget, Bilawal said, “India has two options: share water fairly, or we will deliver water to us from all six rivers.”
“The attack on Sindhu [Indus River] and India’s claim that the IWT has ended and it’s in abeyance, firstly, this is illegal, as the IWT is not in abeyance, it is binding on Pakistan and India, but the threat itself of stopping water is illegal according to the UN charter,” the former foreign minister said.
He continued that if India decides to follow through on the threat, we will have to wage war again.He added that hopefully Pakistan won’t have to, but if it does have to, it is in the position to defeat India the same way it just did.
Bilawal further told lawamkers that peace between the two nuclear neighbours is impossible without cooperation, especially in counterterrorism efforts. “If India and Pakistan refuse to talk, and if there is no coordination on terrorism, then violence will only intensify in both countries,” he warned.
He said India was weaponising terrorism for political purposes. “India seeks to exploit terrorism as a political tool to harm Pakistan’s international standing,” he said, adding that during his diplomatic visits to the United Kingdom and European Union as foreign minister, it became evident that India had lobbied hard to reverse Pakistan’s progress on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) front.
