Pakistan Raises Indus Waters Treaty Suspension at Global Forum, Calls India’s Move Provocative

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has called India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty a concerning and provocative act, raising the issue on the international stage during his address to the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila. Dar said resolving the Jammu and Kashmir dispute remains the foundation for lasting peace in South Asia.

He warned that unilateral actions related to the Indus Waters Treaty could affect the interests of 250 million Pakistanis, underscoring the treaty’s outsized importance to Pakistan’s water security given how heavily the country’s agriculture and drinking water supply depend on the Indus river system’s flow, much of which originates in India-controlled territory upstream.

The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 with World Bank mediation, has historically been regarded as one of the more durable elements of India-Pakistan relations, surviving multiple wars and periods of severe bilateral tension over more than six decades. India’s suspension of the agreement — a step Dar’s remarks suggest remains a live and unresolved issue — would mark a significant departure from that historical durability, raising the stakes considerably given Pakistan’s near-total reliance on the Indus system for irrigation supporting its agricultural economy.

Dar connected the water dispute to broader efforts at regional stability, saying the Islamabad reconciliation process created a significant opportunity for peace in the region, referencing Pakistan’s recent mediating role in the separate US-Iran conflict. He called on all parties to exercise restraint and resolve disputes through diplomacy, adding that Afghan territory should not be used for terrorism against Pakistan — linking the water treaty issue to Pakistan’s broader set of regional security concerns spanning its eastern border with India and western border with Afghanistan simultaneously.

Raising the Indus Waters Treaty suspension at a multilateral forum like the ASEAN Regional Forum, rather than solely through bilateral channels with India, suggests Islamabad is seeking to internationalize the dispute and build broader diplomatic awareness of the issue, a strategy similar to how Pakistan has approached other contested matters with India historically, including Kashmir.

The linkage Dar drew between Kashmir’s unresolved status and water security reflects Pakistan’s longstanding position that the two issues are structurally connected, given that key tributaries of the Indus system originate in or flow through the disputed Kashmir region, making any resolution of the territorial dispute inherently tied to questions of water rights and river management between the two countries.

Whether raising this issue at ASEAN generates any renewed international attention or diplomatic pressure on India regarding the treaty’s status remains uncertain, particularly since water-sharing disputes of this kind have historically been treated as bilateral matters, with international forums playing a limited role in resolving the underlying disagreement over treaty implementation.