Dar writes to UNSC president, highlights India's 'brazen violations' of Indus Waters Treaty

UNITED NATIONS: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has urged the UN Security Council (UNSC) to take notice of India’s “brazen violations” of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), warning that New Delhi’s actions threaten Pakistan’s water security, regional stability and international peace. Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad delivered a letter from DPM Dar to the president of the UNSC, Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres of Colombia, drawing attention to India’s violations of the IWT. In a post on the social media platform X, the ambassador said the letter “draws urgent attention of the UNSC to two illegal Indian infrastructure projects linked to Chenab River system aimed at water diversion, which reveal India’s intention to illegally alter the treaty-governed flow and use of the Western rivers, weaponising water with dangerous implications for Pakistan’s water, food, and economic security as well as regional stability and international peace and security”. He said that the UNSC was urged to take cognizance of this “fragile and deteriorating situation and hold India accountable for its brazen violations”. “I also briefed the president of the UNSC on the overall situation in South Asia and India’s continued non-compliance with its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,” he said. Dar had also written a similar letter to the UNSC president in April, to draw the council’s attention to the matter “one year after India’s illegal decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance” and highlighted the move’s “grave peace and security, and humanitarian consequences”. On Thursday, DPM Dar had stated that at least 17 projects by India on waterways part of the Indus River System would give New Delhi the “tools for hydro-hegemony”. The IWT remains a contentious issue between India and Pakistan, following New Delhi’s unilateral abeyance of the accord last year — a move that followed