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 attempt to stop and divert the treaty water belonging to Pakistan,” he explained.

The commissioner for Indus Waters said the IWT had converted a “territorial water system” into a legal structure by fixing rights and obligations each party owed to the other.

“The eastern rivers were allocated to India, and the western were placed under Pakistan, with India’s use confined to carefully defined exceptions,” he recalled. “Pakistan accepted that bargain, rebuilt its irrigation life around that bargain and planned its national water economy around the assurance that the western rivers would be let flow.”

“The bargain remains a bargain,” he said, stressing that the agreement was “not a favour, but a binding settlement”.

The commissioner reiterated that the treaty functioned as a “conflict prevention design” and was engineered for “peace”.

He said the treaty worked because of four elements operating together — allocation, cooperation, the institution and dispute control, the Indus Water Commission in this case.

Shah further explained, “Allocation tells each side what it may use, what it may not; cooperation provides data, notice and inspection, and commission gives a regular channel of communication,” he said, warning that removing any of these elements would lead to the peace function failing.

“Therefore, abeyance is not a diplomatic slogan but an attempt to disable the stabilising architecture of the treaty,” he said.

Mentioning Article 8 of the IWT, which pertains to the Indus Water Commission, he said the operating mechanism kept “water out of conflict”.

Talking about Article 9 of the treaty, Shah said it provided an “elaborate dispute resolution mechanism” that began at the bilateral level and, if that failed, the process “without any paralysis” moved on to a third-party forum.

“The sequence is deliberate: institutional settlement first and third-party determination where necessary but no paralysis,” he added.

On the arbitration mechanism outlined in the treaty, Shah said that the Court of Arbitration had “reactivated the treaty” and addressed any legal uncertainty around the issue.

He recalled that India began work on projects planned for western rivers of the Indus system in 2000, and there had always been discord between the two parties.

“In 2016, Pakistan decided that now it’s time to have the general interpretation of the IWT, particularly the provisions which govern the development by India on the western rivers,” he said, recalling that Pakistan received two awards from the Court of Arbitration — one in 2025 and another in May, 2026.

Shah said the court confirmed “four essential” points in its rulings: “First, India’s non-appearance before the court does not paralyse the proceedings. Second, the abeyance posture does not deprive the court of competence. Third, the award is final, binding and controlling. And India must let the western rivers flow with treaty exceptions applied strictly.”

He asserted that it was not merely “political rhetoric” or Pakistan’s stance but the “treaty speaking through its own court”.

The commissioner said Pakistan did not object to “lawful hydropower”, but the “unlawful control, excessive discreation and opaque operations are a problem”.

He further said that Pakistan, in the past year, had tried to keep the channel of communication and data-sharing under the IWT active despite India holding the treaty in abeyance.

“Pakistan continued to provide the required data, sent correspondents, requested meetings, inspections, project information and [held] Article 9 consultations,” he said; however, he added that Pakistan received no response from the Indian side.

He said that the Indian side followed a similar pattern before the 2025 abeyance, recalling that the last commission meeting was held in May 2022.

“No general or special tour of inspection, corresponding monthly data has remained outstanding after August 2023 and multiple core treaty communications have received no response,” he added.

“This is precisely what increases the risk of avoidable escalation,” he warned, adding that “hydrological information is not a diplomatic courtesy” but rather an “operational necessity”.

“Without data, the downstream state is forced to guess whether it faces nature or the upstream operation,” he explained.

Shah further recalled that he had written to his Indian counterpart last night over “significant fluctuations” in the flow of the River Chenab “for the fourth time since last year in April”.

He said the fluctuation was not a “technical inconvenience, but rather a strategic hazard”.

He said a lack of data would shrink the flood forecast windows, diminish predictive confidence for barrages and reservoirs and displace technical verification.

“There is no brainer in understanding that data-sharing is the line between natural risk and manufactured vulnerability.”

Speaking the fluctuating flows in the Chenab River, he demanded that India answer for the fluctuations.

“I will state this carefully and without overclaiming causation. These events required explanation and operational data, and we have been asking India through treaty channels, but there is no response from the Indian side, and no response creates a risk,” he said.

He said that no “responsible” downstream commissioner would look at the fluctuation as “routine and move on”.

“These are precisely the events the commission exists to examine,” he added.

‘Inalienable right’

The seminar began with an opening speech by Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, who said the 240 million people of Pakistan had an “inalienable right” to water from the Indus River System.

“When we say that Indus is our lifeline and our people, the 240m people of Pakistan, have an inalienable right to the water of Indus, we mean it, from the core of our hearts,” he said.

He also described the IWT as “an instrument of peace and regional stability”.

“Today, we are not merely discussing the treaty. We are discussing the lifeline of nearly 240 million people of Pakistan,” he said.

He added, “When we identify ourselves as Pakistanis, we ask a question as to who we are. And if you go back into history, the Indus water [sic] civilisation defines us as a people.

“Whenever I go abroad, I always tell my counterparts that we are the people of the Indus Valley civilisation. Our identification is that we are people based on the banks and tributaries of the mighty Indus River.”

The minister said water was life, and the “Indus has given life to Pakistan”.

For Pakistan, he went on to say, water was simply not a resource but a matter of life itself.

Tarar said the Indus River system had nurtured one of the world’s oldest civilisations for thousands of years. “From the towering peaks of Gilgit-Baltistan to the fertile plains of Punjab and Sindh, these waters have connected our people across geography and history.”

He added that the story of Pakistan was, in many ways, the story of the Indus. It was for this reason that the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 occupied such a “unique place in international relations”, he said.

He recalled that the treaty was signed under the auspices of the World Bank and had endured wars, political upheavals and prolonged periods of tension.

“Its resilience, for more than six decades, demonstrates an enduring truth that cooperation, dialogue and adherence to international commitments remain the only sustainable path to peace,” Tarar said.

The minister said the IWT stood as a “remarkable example” of the rule-based international order. “It embodies the principle of good faith — pacta sunt servanda — the sanctity of agreements and peaceful dispute resolutions. These are not merely legal concepts, but foundations upon which trust is built.”

Then, turning his attention to tensions between India and Pakistan over the IWT, he asserted that Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership had made it clear that the people of Pakistan had a right to the water of the Indus and the treaty could not be amended, revoked, suspended or held in abeyance unilaterally.

In contestation of the Indian decision to unilaterally hold the treaty in abeyance, Tarar pointed out that the treaty came into being after mutual consensus between Pakistan and India and could only be amended or revised with the mutual consensus of the two sides.

“India’s failed attempt at unilaterally holding this treaty in abeyance has led to international embarrassment for India at various forums, including legal forums,” he said.

Moreover, he contended that the “moral, social and legal foundations” of any one-sided attempt to hold the IWT in abeyance. “And any structure which has weak foundations will fall flat on its face,” he remarked.

The minister stressed the need to protect the IWT, especially at a time when climate change was accelerating, glaciers were melting at an unprecedented rate and water scarcity was becoming the defining challenge of the present times.

Tarar said South Asia was home to nearly a quarter of humanity, adding that “our collective future depends upon transforming water from a source of contention into a catalyst for cooperation”.

“History teaches us that rivers do not divide civilisations; they connect them. Rivers transcend borders, politics and generations. They remind us that nature recognises no boundaries, and that humanity’s shared challenges demand shared solutions,” he added.

Any attempt to block or stop water, he said, would always fail because water would always find a way.

“The weaponisation of water or attempts to unilaterally alter established arrangements undermine not only regional peace and stability but also the broader framework of international law. International agreements, as I said, cannot be suspended or disregarded at convenience.

“Respect for treaties is indispensable for maintaining confidence among nations and preserving the global order,” he emphasised.

He said Pakistan had consistently demonstrated its commitment to peaceful engagement and constructive dialogue and the faithful implementation of the treaty. But, he warned, if an attempt was made to stop the water of Pakistan, the country’s leadership stood resolved to respond effectively to restore the water for the people of Pakistan.

Concluding his address, he said: “Let us reaffirm today that we will, by all means, not only protect the sanctity of this treaty, but we will do all that we can to protect the inalienable right of the 240m people of Pakistan to the water of the Indus River.

“The waters of the Indus have flowed for millennia. They have witnessed transformations. Yet, they continue to sustain life with unwavering generosity. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these waters remain a symbol of peace and shared prosperity for generations to come. […] We collectively resolve today that we will do all that we can at all international forums, legally and otherwise, to ensure that the right to water of the Pakistani people is not only protected, but the world gets to see the illegal attempts being made by India to alter or change this treaty, which it cannot do.”

Pakistan, he said, stood firm in its determination to protect the lives and livelihoods of its people, which are linked to the Indus River.

More to follow