Response from India awaited, says FO: Indus Water Treaty violation
By Hasan Akhtar
ISLAMABAD, May 6: The Foreign Office refuted on Monday the suggestion that Islamabad was down-playing a reported violation of the Indus Water Treaty by India which was building a hydroelectric project on river Chenab in held Kashmir, and said Islamabad had already raised the issue with New Delhi as stipulated in the treaty, though the Indian response was still not received.
Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan at his weekly news briefing said that the Indus Water Treaty, concluded in early 1960s with the World Bank intercession, for equitable and peaceful distribution of the Indus water between the two countries, had provided a procedure to be followed in the event of differences at any stage in the implementation of the treaty.
The reported issue of construction of Baglihar hydroelectric project on river Chenab, the spokesman said, had been raised by the Pakistani Indus Commission official with his Indian counterpart whose response to open discussion between the two sides and undertake a joint inspection of the disputed project, was still not available.
Aziz A. Khan assured that Pakistan would persist in its efforts to engage India to discuss the hydroelectric project and would follow it up if no satisfactory response was available at the Indus commissioners’ level, by taking further specified procedural steps as specified under the treaty and raise the issue through diplomatic level (between the governments) and eventually seek to invoke the arbitration provision if the diplomatic efforts also fail to resolve the differences.
TROOP WITHDRAWAL: To another question, the spokesman said that Pakistan had been seeking de-escalation of tension and withdrawal of troops from the border for quite some time and had also received support for its position from the United States and other foreign governments. However, New Delhi has so far remained unmoved, thus bringing no change in the situation, he added.
ANTI-TERROR WAR: The spokesman said that an interior ministry delegation led by Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider, would discuss a wide range of issues with the US officials during its stay in Washington, including anti-narcotic trafficking measures and international terrorism besides several other issues.
FOREIGN TROOPS: The spokesman reiterated that no foreign troops were involved in operations in the tribal territory or in other areas where only the Pakistani forces were conducting operations. However, “a few Americans who could be counted on fingertips” were helping in intelligence and exchange of information, he maintained.
He said there were no joint US-Pakistan plans at present for fencing and establishing watch-towers along the border with Afghanistan to prevent cross-border terrorist activities, asserting that at present the ground forces guarding the borders were carrying out their job pretty well.
OSAMA’s PRESENCE: Aziz A. Khan dismissed as mere hearsay reports about the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and said that even if he managed to slip through the tight border vigilance from across the border into Pakistan, he was certain to be caught. But, he pointed out, there should be no such speculations after what President Gen Pervez Musharraf had said the other day that “Osama was in Afghanistan, dead or alive”.
PRISONERS REPATRIATION: Mr Khan told a questioner that it was hoped that Kabul and Islamabad would be able to announce in a couple of days a programme for the repatriation of all Pakistani prisoners who were languishing in prisons in Afghanistan, but emphasized that the repatriated persons would have to go through intensive interrogation and investigation to find out why and how did they go to Afghanistan, and in most cases avoiding travel restrictions and laws.
