“Blood, Water…”: Ex-Diplomat Kanwal Sibal Calls For Halting Indus Waters Treaty With Pak
Calling for a strong response after the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which 26 people were killed, former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal has called for the indefinite suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, asserting that “blood and water” can’t go together.
The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s dastardly attack.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Mr Sibal, who was the Indian ambassador to Russia and is now the Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, also pointed to the timing of the massacre – during US Vice-President JD Vance’s visit – stating that India is in a favourable position with the US.
“It is time to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty indefinitely as a truly meaningful response to the latest terrorist outrage in Pahalgam instigated by Pakistan. We have earlier said that blood and water can’t go together. Let’s act on our own declared position. This will be a strategic response,” Mr Sibal wrote.
“We are in a favourable position on this with the US as the terrorist attack has occurred during Vance’s visit. Trump and Vance have strong views on Islamic extremism and terrorism,” he added.
Signed in 1960 after nine years of negotiations between India and Pakistan, the Indus Waters Treaty sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two sides on the use of the waters of a number of cross-border rivers.
The World Bank was also a signatory to the pact and India’s position on two hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir under the treaty was upheld by a neutral expert appointed by the organisation in January.
“It has been India’s consistent and principled position that the Neutral Expert alone has the competence under the Treaty to decide these differences” on the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants in the Union Territory, the Ministry of External Affairs had said.
In August last year, India had also served a notice to Pakistan seeking a review of the Treaty, stating that “fundamental and unforeseen” changes in circumstances necessitated a reassessment. Some reports had said cross-border terrorism from Pakistan was one of the reasons behind the notice.