World Bank President Ajay Banga has said that there is no provision in the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) for suspension, in an interview with Indian broadcaster CNBC-TV18.
Speaking in New Delhi, he said, “There is no provision in the treaty to allow to be suspended, the way it (IWT) was drawn up, it either needs to be gone or it needs to be replaced by another one. That requires the two countries to want to agree.
“The treaty is not suspended, it’s technically called something in abeyance, is how the Indian government worded it.”
Article XII of the IWT makes it clear that it can only be modified by mutual agreement,
Elaborating on the World Bank’s role, Banga explained, “The World Bank’s role is basically that of a facilitator if they disagree – not by us making a decision – but by us being the party that goes through a process to find a neutral expert or an arbitrator court to settle it.”
He further elaborated that the World Bank also has to pay for the process from a trust fund established during the treaty’s inception to cover the fees of potential arbitrators.
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan did not consider deploying nuclear warheads to strike India when the tensions between the two countries mounted last week.
The deputy prime minister, in an interview with CNN, said that Pakistan “had no choice” but to launch strikes in “self-defense” following India’s May 7 cross-border attacks.
Terming India’s strikes a “war” and a “wishful attempt to establish its hegemony” in Kashmir, he said, “There are certain times when you have to take very serious decisions We were very sure that our conventional capacity and capabilities are strong enough that we will beat them both in air and on ground.”
While the ceasefire agreement has so far appeared to hold, Dar told the interviewer that long-term negotiations between the two parties were “not done yet.”
“We still hope sense will prevail,” he remarked.
He said that it was in the interest of everybody not to delay or to leave such issues beyond a certain reasonable time.
“(The Indians) had seen what happened in the sky,” he added. “They could see how serious the damage was.”
Deputy Prime Minister said that there was no direct contact between Indian or Pakistani officials, contradicting a previous assertion made by India’s director general of military operations, who reportedly received a message from his counterpart in Pakistan during the talks.
Instead, he said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio passed on the message that India was ready to stop the fighting.
He said that Pakistan was looking forward to establishing a path for long-term peace and security that would provide “dignity for both sides.”
Calling Kashmir “the root cause of this regional instability” Ishaq Dar called for granting the self-determination right to the Kashmir people.
He reiterated that Pakistan was not behind last month’s attack in Pahalgam, saying, “We condemn terrorism in all forms and all manifestations.”
Dar added that he believed US President Donald Trump supported Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts.
“If they didn’t believe (in our efforts), they would not have cooperated the way (that they did),” Dar said, pointing to Trump’s social media post on “finding a solution” to the Kashmir conflict.
However, Dar warned that the already precarious ceasefire could be threatened if the water issue was not resolved in the coming talks, referring to the Indian decision of holding the bilateral Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance.
Failure to resolve the water issue “will amount to an act of war,” Dar added.