UNITED NATIONS, May 24:
India ripped through Pakistan’s “disinformation” at the UN on the Indus Waters Treaty, asserting that Islamabad violated its spirit by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India that seek to hold hostage lives of civilians, religious harmony and economic prosperity.
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“We are constrained to respond to the disinformation being carried out by the delegation of Pakistan with regard to the Indus Waters Treaty. India has always acted in a responsible manner as an upper riparian state,” India’s Permanent Representative to UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish said on Friday.
Harish was addressing the UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting organised by the Permanent Mission of Slovenia on ‘Protecting Water in Armed Conflict – Protecting Civilian Lives.’
Harish highlighted four aspects to expose the “disinformation” by Pakistan, which spoke about India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty.
In the wake of the horrific April 22 Pahalgam attack in Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed, India had decided that the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 would be held in abeyance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.
Harish told the UN meeting that India had entered into the Indus Waters Treaty 65 years ago in good faith.
Noting that the Preamble of the Treaty describes that it was concluded ‘in a spirit of good will and friendship’, Harish said throughout these six and a half decades, “Pakistan has violated the spirit of the treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India.”
The Indian envoy underlined that in the last four decades, more than 20,000 Indian lives have been lost in terror attacks, the most recent of which was the dastardly targeted terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam.
Even as India has shown extraordinary patience and magnanimity throughout this period, Harish said Pakistan’s “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism in India seeks to hold hostage the lives of civilians, religious harmony and economic prosperity.”
Harish pointed out that India has formally asked Pakistan to discuss the modifications of the Treaty on several occasions in the past two years but Islamabad continues to reject these.
“Pakistan’s obstructionist approach continues to prevent the exercise of full utilisation of legitimate rights by India,” he said.
Further, Harish said that in the past 65 years, far-reaching fundamental changes have taken place not only in terms of escalating security concerns through cross-border terror attacks but also growing requirements for producing clean energy, climate change and demographic change.
He noted that in 2012, terrorists even attacked the Tulbul Navigation Project in Jammu and Kashmir. (PTI)
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