ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has warned that India’s unilateral move to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance has triggered an unprecedented crisis for Pakistan’s water security, food systems, and regional stability.
The warning was issued by Pakistan’s Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, while speaking at the Global Water Bankruptcy Policy Roundtable hosted by the Permanent Mission of Canada and the United Nations University (UNU) at UN headquarters in New York. Ambassador Jadoon said India’s decision, taken in April last year, was followed by material violations of the treaty, including unannounced disruptions in downstream water flows and the withholding of critical hydrological data. He described these actions as a deliberate “weaponisation of water.”
“Pakistan’s position is unequivocal,” he said. “The Indus Waters Treaty remains legally intact and does not permit unilateral suspension or modification.”He noted that for over six decades, the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty has functioned as a durable framework for equitable and predictable management of the Indus River basin.
The basin, he added, sustains one of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation systems, supplies more than 80 percent of Pakistan’s agricultural water requirements, and supports the livelihoods of over 240 million people.
Ambassador Jadoon underscored that water insecurity has become a systemic global risk, with far-reaching impacts on food production, energy security, public health, livelihoods, and human security.
Highlighting Pakistan’s vulnerabilities, he said the country is a semi-arid, climate-exposed, lower-riparian state grappling with floods, droughts, accelerated glacier melt, groundwater depletion, and rapid population growth—factors that are placing immense strain on already stressed water resources. He said Pakistan is pursuing measures to strengthen water resilience through integrated planning, flood protection, irrigation rehabilitation, groundwater recharge, and ecosystem restoration. Initiatives such as “Living Indus” and “Recharge Pakistan”, he said, reflect these efforts.
Stressing the need for collective action, Ambassador Jadoon said systemic water risks, particularly in shared river basins, cannot be managed by any single country. “Predictability, transparency, and cooperation in transboundary water governance are not optional—they are matters of survival for downstream populations,” he said. He called for water insecurity to be recognised as a systemic global risk in the lead-up to the UN Water Conference 2026 and urged that respect for international water law and cooperation be placed at the core of global water governance to safeguard vulnerable downstream communities.
