UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad on Friday handed over a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, to Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres of Columbia, president of the Security Council for June, concerning India’s continued “illegal actions and violations” of the World Bank-brokered 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan.
According to a Pakistani mission press release, the letter drew urgent attention of the 15-member Council to the 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, weaponizing water with dangerous implications for Pakistan’s water, food, and economic security as well as regional stability and international peace and security.
The letter urged the Security Council to take cognizance of this “fragile and deteriorating situation and hold India accountable for its brazen violations”.
Ambassador Asim Ahmad also briefed the UNSC President 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, according to the press release.
Earlier, Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Thursday warned that the use of transboundary water resources as a tool of coercion threatens regional peace and global stability, and stressed that respect for international treaties and cooperative water governance must remain the cornerstone of the international order.
Addressing the Brussels Conference titled “Transboundary Water Resources: A Weaponised Global Common,” DPM Dar said shared water resources should unite nations rather than divide them, and called for adherence to international law and treaty obligations to prevent conflicts over water.
The conference was jointly organized by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the Embassy of Pakistan in Brussels, bringing together experts, policymakers and climate specialists to discuss the governance of transboundary water resources.
DPM Dar said the management of shared rivers through agreements, treaties and mutual understandings was of critical global importance, warning that in the absence of cooperative frameworks, competing interests could transform common resources into sources of conflict and “weaponisation.”