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Pahalgam attack: The Pakistan playbook and messaging from Islamabad
There is a deliberate upping of the ante and a realisation that international support against Indian attack is no longer guaranteed
Shyam Saran
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In the aftermath of the barbaric terrorist incident in Pahalgam, India announced a series of measures, which in their totality would bring the already meagre relations between India and Pakistan to a virtual cipher. The stoppage of trade, transit, and cross-border travel were to be expected. A new element is putting into abeyance the operation of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 on the division of the waters of the Indus river and its tributaries.
The implications of this are unclear. Would this affect the volume of river flows downstream into Pakistan, or stop short of this threshold? Pakistan has
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