Ripping through Pakistan's “disinformation” at the UN on the Indus Waters Treaty, India asserted that Islamabad violated its spirit by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India that seek to hold hostage the lives of civilians, religious harmony and economic prosperity. “We are constrained to respond to the disinformation being carried out by the delegation of Pakistan about the Indus Waters Treaty. India has always acted responsibly as an upper riparian state,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, said on Friday.
Harish was addressing the UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting organised by the Permanent Mission of Slovenia on ‘Protecting Water in Armed Conflict – Protecting Civilian Lives’.
India keeps Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance
In the wake of the horrific April 22 Pahalgam attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians were killed, India had decided that the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 would be held in abeyance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism. Harish told the UN meeting that India had entered into the Indus Waters Treaty 65 years ago in good faith.
Noting that the Preamble of the Treaty describes that it was concluded ‘in a spirit of goodwill and friendship’, Harish said throughout these six and a half decades, “Pakistan has violated the spirit of the treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India.”
'India has shown extraordinary patience...': Indian envoy at UN
The Indian envoy underlined that in the last four decades, more than 20,000 Indian lives have been lost in terror attacks, the most recent of which was the dastardly targeted terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam.
Even as India has shown extraordinary patience and magnanimity throughout this period, Harish said Pakistan’s “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism in India seeks to hold hostage the lives of civilians, religious harmony and economic prosperity.”
Harish pointed out that India has formally asked Pakistan to discuss the modifications of the Treaty on several occasions in the past two years, but Islamabad continues to reject these.
(With inputs from agency)