ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has told India that water war could be dangerous for the whole region, officials said.
Senior officials at the foreign ministry told The Nation that Pakistan had contacted India through the diplomatic channels after the latest statement by an Indian minister on water flow and warned against escalating the tension further.
“India cannot stop Pakistan’s water. We have told them that such irresponsible statements could be dangerous for the whole region and should be best avoided,” one official said.
Another official said India had issued such statements a number of times in the past but failed to stop Pakistan’s water. “They cannot do it. There are international rules to be followed. India can’t take such decisions by itself,” he added.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi meanwhile urged the World Bank to take notice of Indian threats to stop the flow of water into the country.
He said that India gave an irresponsible statement regarding stopping the flow of water into Pakistan, adding that he had given reference to the issue in his letter to the UN chief.
“World Bank is a guarantor of the Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and Indian,” he said.
Earlier, India threatened to isolate Pakistan on the international level and then claimed it would stop the flow of water into the country. Indian Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari said the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken the decision to block the water flow to Pakistan.
“Our government has decided to stop our share of water which used to flow to Pakistan,” Nitin Gadkari, transport and water resources minister, said in a tweet. He added that the country would divert water from eastern rivers and supply it to Jammu and Kashmir and Indian Punjab.
The comments came as New Delhi fumed over an attack in the disputed region of Kashmir, which killed more than 40 paramilitary police. India accused Pakistan of not doing enough to control such groups, while Pakistan has denied involvement.
The sharing of water supplies from the Indus River and its tributaries between the two countries is regulated under a 1960 treaty. In recent years India had begun ambitious irrigation plans and construction of many upstream dams, saying its use of upstream water is strictly in line with the treaty.
After the attack on security forces in the Kashmir town of Uri in 2016, India had started fast-track development of some of the controversial dam projects, escalating tensions between the arch-rivals.
This week, Prime Minister Imran Khan authorised the armed forces to hit back against India if attacked but repeated a call for an investigation into the attack in Kashmir.
Pakistan’s Commissioner for Indus Waters Syed Mehr Ali Shah said under the Indus Water Treaty India can divert the eastern rivers’ water. He however, said India cannot amend the passage of western rivers -Chenab, Indus, Jhelum – as Pakistan has the right.
“If they change the flow of the eastern rivers, we have no problem. But we will not allow them to usurp our share,” he said.
Last year, China and Saudi Arabia had promised to support Pakistan’s efforts to overcome the looming water crisis. Prime Minister Imran Khan had also urged the overseas Pakistanis to donate at least $1000 each to overcome the water crisis.
Prime Minister Khan had warned Pakistan could face drought like conditions by 2025 if dams were not constructed. Last September, the Senate Special Committee on Water Scarcity was informed that Pakistan as a water stressed country had the capacity of storing water for a maximum of 36 days, while the rest of the world can hold water for use for 130 days.
Water Resources Secretary Shumail Ahmed Khawaja said that current water available resources was 138 Million Acre Feet with a storage capacity of 13.7 MAF which was only 10 percent of available water resources. He said that 90-95 percent of Pakistan’s water was being used for irrigation, 50 percent of which was lost during canal diversion.
The United Nations Development Program and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources issued warnings in May last year, predicting the country will run dry by the year 2025 if water-availability indicators slid further.
In 1990, the Water Resources council’s research revealed that Pakistan was at the “water stress line,” which was further downgraded to “water scarcity line” in 2005.
The Indus Rivers System Authority also warned of an upcoming catastrophe if the country’s storage system did not improve and environmental degradation continued unabated.