Overview
- Pakistan hosted an international seminar in Islamabad this week to rally ministers, legal experts and foreign specialists to defend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty and press that it remains legally binding despite India placing the pact in abeyance in 2025.
- Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and other senior ministers warned that any diversion, interruption or reduction of water allocated to Pakistan under the treaty would be treated as an "act of war" and described the withholding of hydrological data as the "weaponisation" of water.
- Pakistan’s Indus River System Authority and officials at the seminar alleged abrupt drops in Chenab and Jhelum flows and accused India of accelerating projects and closing gates that could affect downstream supplies, while New Delhi has not resumed treaty cooperation.
- India says it put the treaty in abeyance after the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack and ties reengagement to Pakistan taking credible, irreversible action against groups New Delhi blames for the attack, leaving bilateral channels and the treaty’s mechanisms stalled.
- Speakers warned that climate stress, shrinking glaciers and heat-driven demand make steady western-river flows vital for the livelihoods of 240–250 million people in Pakistan, and Pakistan called for a binding international covenant to stop water being used as leverage.