IWT issue matter of national security for Pakistan: Indus Waters commissioner

Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah said on Tuesday that the issue of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) for Pakistan was not just a matter of hydrology but national security. “When the lives and livelihoods of more than 240 million are tied to the Indus basin, when more than 80 per cent of the arable land depends on these waters […], when agriculture contributes almost a quarter of GDP and almost one-third of employment, water uncertainty becomes national uncertainty,” he explained, highlighting the significance of the water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan. The commissioner remarked, “Flow prediction is not a luxury of planning but part of the survival architecture of the state.” He expressed these views at a seminar held in Islamabad to highlight the legal and constitutional framework of the IWT, which remains a contentious issue between India and Pakistan. The 1960 treaty regulates the distribution of the Indus River system between India and Pakistan. However, India announced last year that it was placing its IWT obligations in abeyance. The announcement followed an attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 tourists — an incident New Delhi blamed on Islamabad without evidence. For its part, Pakistan strongly denied the allegations and called for a neutral investigation. The treaty and its status remain a point of contention between the two sides since, with an Indian minister recently saying that they were working to stop the flow of water into Pakistan, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar later assailing 17 projects by India on Indus waterways as “tools for hydro-hegemony”. In his address at the Islamabad seminar, Shah said the IWT was a “conflict prevention system” and that “Pakistan’s restraint has been deliberate”. “But water, food, livelihood, and social stability are not negotiable abstractions; that is why Pakistan has publicly defined the strategic threshold for any attemp