Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Monday said the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) could not be revoked unilaterally as Pakistan prepared to present the treaty’s legal and technical aspects to experts at the IWT 2026 seminar, scheduled to be held in Islamabad on Tuesday (tomorrow).
“Water security is important to Pakistan,” the information minister stressed and added that the country retains legal and environmental rights over the contractually bound waterway shared with the eastern neighbour.
For over six decades, India and Pakistan amicably managed the Indus River system through the IWT transboundary water-sharing agreement signed on September 19, 1960. Last year in April, India suspended the treaty in the wake of the Pahalgam attack.
Tarar, during a joint press conference with Minister for Climate Change Dr Musadik Malik, highlighted that the World Bank-brokered treaty included a detailed framework for resolving any outstanding issues.
Read: Here’s what India’s suspension of Indus Waters Treaty means for Pakistan
He reminded the Modi-led government that water was not just the country’s lifeline; it was also the country’s “red line”.
سندھ طاس معاہدے کو باقاعدہ طور پر دونوں ملکوں نے تسلیم کیا تھا، وزیر اطلاعات#AttaullahTarar #IndusWatersTreaty pic.twitter.com/Yx47wRORtA
— APP (@appcsocialmedia) June 29, 2026
The minister said the government invited a host of water and legal experts from around the world to inculcate awareness about the rights of Pakistan over the Indus River against the backdrop of the agreement, saying a conference has been organised on Tuesday (tomorrow) to supplement the cause.
Everyone recognises the narrative of Pakistan, the information minister outlined.
Speaking on the occasion, the climate minister said the issue of unilateral suspension had been raised on several international forums, including the United Nations.
“Pakistan’s standpoint was upheld by the International Arbitration Courts,” Malik underscored during the presser.
He said the current water crisis suffered by the 240 million people of Pakistan can be explained metaphorically through the widely reported case of Iqbal Solangi – a farming resident of the Sindh-Balochistan border who suffered in the deluges of 2010, 2012 and 2022 while he constantly tried to build his life around the catastrophes.
Malik explained that agricultural land across Pakistan continuously suffered due to either floods or droughts: “Either the land sinks under several feet of floodwater or is left cracked due to an immense shortfall.”
“Climate change is not the only element to blame; the Indian prime minister is equally responsible,” he added.
The climate minister highlighted that PM Modi, with “his hand on the tap”, threatens to deprive Pakistan of every drop of water.
Read more: ‘Not a single drop of water will flow to Pakistan’: Indian minister threatens to block water supply
“India nefariously plans whether to flood or deprive Pakistan.”
He further stated that India’s water war adversely affects around 40- 50% of the people of Pakistan who depend on agriculture and, in the long term, shrinks the country’s 25% economy relying on the sector.
Hinting at Pakistan’s latest diplomatic coup, the minister said Pakistan managed to garner immense support from the European Union and NATO during a recent seminar held in Brussels.
Read further: New Delhi rattled by Brussels water event
“No one in the history of the world ever planned to stop rivers from flowing downstream, or the wind from crossing the border,” the minister took exception to India.
He warned that Pakistan had already declared that anyone trying to deprive it of its water would face severe consequences.
“There is also the question of justice. We will protect ourselves,” Malik said while questioning whether every upper riparian now had the right to stop the flow of water to the lower riparian.
“Elsewhere in the world, water flows downstream unbothered even in the absence of a treaty, governed only by a convention… We have a treaty. How can the water be stopped then?” the climate change minister asserted, the case, he said, was bound by justice.
He outlined that Tuesday’s conference was primarily about justice and rights.
Concluding on the Indian policy of undermining the treaty with Pakistan, Malik said, it matched the defiant and genocidal policies of Israel, which overlooks all international treaties.
The Indus Waters Treaty
After years of negotiations, facilitated by the World Bank, the IWT was signed in September 1960 by then-Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru and former Pakistani President Ayub Khan. India was given control over the three eastern rivers—Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas—while Pakistan was assigned control over the three western rivers—Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab. According to the treaty, India is legally bound to allow the waters of the western rivers to flow into Pakistan, with only a few exceptions.
According to the treaty, Pakistan has unrestricted use of these rivers, while India is permitted to construct hydroelectric facilities on them under specific conditions. These projects must conform to design constraints outlined in the treaty’s annexures, ensuring that they are “run-of-the-river” and do not significantly alter water flow or storage to Pakistan’s detriment.
Pakistan, which receives roughly 80 per cent of the water in the Indus river system, relies heavily on these rivers. Of the 16.8 crore acre-feet of water in the system, India is allocated around 3.3 crore acre-feet. At present, India uses slightly more than 90 per cent of its permitted share, leaving Pakistan deeply dependent on the remainder.
This dependence is profound. The Indus river network—comprising the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—forms the backbone of Pakistan’s agricultural sector. It sustains a population of tens of millions, fulfilling 23 per cent of the country’s agricultural water needs and directly supporting nearly 68 per cent of rural livelihoods. Any disruption to this supply could trigger widespread consequences: reduced crop yields, food insecurity, and further economic instability, particularly in regions already burdened by poverty and an ongoing financial crisis.
Compounding the issue is Pakistan’s limited water storage capacity. Major dams such as Mangla and Tarbela have a combined live storage of just 14.4 million acre-feet (MAF)—a mere 10 per cent of the country’s annual entitlement under the treaty. In times of reduced water flow or seasonal variability, this shortfall in storage leaves Pakistan acutely vulnerable.
Despite Pakistan’s heavy reliance on the Indus waters, the treaty does afford India certain rights. It allows the development of 13.4 lakh acres of irrigation in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. However, as of now, only 6.42 lakh acres are being irrigated in these Union Territories. Furthermore, the treaty permits India to store up to 3.60 million acre-feet of water from the western rivers—although little to no such storage infrastructure currently exists in Jammu and Kashmir.
Relations between the two nations took a marked downturn after India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy in 2019, followed by the Pahalgam attack in 2025. Since then, trust between New Delhi and Islamabad has eroded further.
Early June this year, Indian Minister of Water Chandrakant Raghunath Patil told the media that India was strategising the disruption of Indus River flow into Pakistan – an action backed by PM Narendra Modi.
“It is certain, not a single drop of water will go (to Pakistan) in the coming years,” the Indian minister had told ANI news agency.
Meanwhile, Pakistan had warned the Modi-led government against any such measures.Latest News, Breaking News & Top News Stories | The Express TribuneWeb DeskRead More