Natural resources should be shared based on treaties: UN spokesperson on IWT

United Nations:  Natural resources should be shared based on treaties, the UN spokesperson said in the context of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT).

A reporter asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric at his daily briefing on Monday about the reported statement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the Indus Water Treaty will “never be restored”.

Dujarric said that while he had not seen the quote by Shah, “It is critical that natural resources be shared, based on mutually accepted treaties”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the water-sharing arrangement under the treaty in abeyance as a punitive measure against Islamabad after the Pahalgam terrorist attack launched in April by The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba, an internationally sanctioned terrorist organisation.

In an interview with The Times of India over the weekend, Shah said, “We will take water that was flowing to Pakistan to Rajasthan by constructing a canal”.

“Pakistan will be starved of water that it has been getting unjustifiably”, he added.

PM Modi said last month that the treaty had been badly negotiated and did not allow for demographic and other changes.

The treaty to share the river’s waters was facilitated by the World Bank and signed in 1960 by then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s dictator Ayub Khan.

Without being specific about what he envisaged, PM Modi said, “India’s water earlier used to go outside; it will now be used for India’s interests and will be utilised for the country”.

Pakistan has said that it would consider withholding the Indus River water ”an act of war”.

–IANS