India will never restore Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, asserts Amit Shah
India will never restore the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, Union Home Minister Amit Shah told The Times of India on Saturday.
Shah asserted that India will use water that rightfully belongs to it, and that Pakistan 'will be starved of water that it has been getting unjustifiably'. He said that India will use the water that had been flowing to Pakistan from Rajasthan by constructing a canal.
India had placed the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance a day after the April 22 terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, which left 26 persons dead. India said that the treaty would be suspended until Pakistan 'credibly and irrevocably' stopped its support for cross-border terrorism.
Shah on Saturday told The Times of India: 'International treaties can't be annulled unilaterally but we had the right to put it in abeyance, which we have done. The treaty preamble mentions that it was for peace and progress of the two countries, but that has been violated, there is nothing left to protect.'
India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 with the World Bank as an additional signatory. The pact sought to divide the water of the Indus river and its tributaries equitably among the two countries.
Under the treaty, water from three eastern rivers, Beas, Ravi and Sutlej, were allocated to India and that from the three western rivers – Indus, Chenab and Jhelum – to Pakistan.
The treaty also allowed both countries to use the other's rivers for certain purposes, such as small hydroelectric projects that require little or no water storage.
Experts told Scroll that the suspension of the treaty implies that India is no longer accountable to Pakistan for using, regulating or stopping the flow of the water of the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers.
In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, Jal Shakti minister CR Patil had claimed that the Indian government would make sure that 'not a drop of water' goes to Pakistan.
Experts, however, refuted claims that India can immediately block the flow of water into Pakistan.
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