At a preparatory meeting for the key 2026 UN Water Conference, Pakistan has denounced India’s attempts to “weaponize water” by suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and thereby endangering the lives of over 225 million people.
“Water should serve as a unifying force, not a source of division,” Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the meeting.
“Despite recent attempts by one country in our region to weaponize water, Pakistan remains resolute in its commitment to ensuring that the 2026 Water Conference accelerates the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6) and fosters an international law based approach to the governance and sustainable management of transboundary rivers and aquifers,” he said without naming India.
(SDG 6) calls for the world to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
The Conference, co-hosted by Senegal and United Arab Emirates, takes place on 2 to 4 December 2026 in UAE.
Ambassador Jadoon called for the upcoming conference to prioritize advancing practical transboundary cooperation, including through reinforcing legal frameworks and promoting conflict prevention and peaceful dispute resolution, emphasizing that it should also elevate the voices of those countries that depend on shared water resources for their sustainable development and survival.
“Above all,” he said, “the conference offers a crucial opportunity for all delegations to reaffirm their commitment to fundamental principles of international water law-specifically, the equitable and reasonable utilization of shared water resources, the obligation to prevent significant harm to other riparian states, and the duty to cooperate.”
Accordingly, Ambassador Jadoon welcomed the inclusion of Transboundary Water Cooperation as one of the themes for the interactive dialogues. Pakistan, he said, stands ready to contribute constructively to discussions under this theme by sharing insights from its decades-long treaty based water-sharing arrangement.
But the Pakistani envoy’s well-reasoned remarks drew a response from India’s UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish who called them “baseless and unacceptable”, and “another deliberate attempt to politicize this important conference,” leading to a verbal duel.
He talked about fundamental changes in the circumstances since India concluded this water treaty that required a reassessment of the obligations under the treaty, including technological advancements, demographic changes, climate change, the need for clean energy drive and the threat of persistent cross border terrorism.
“Cross Border terrorism from this country interferes with our ability to utilize the water as per the provisions of the treaty; we must reject attempts to exploit UN platforms to spread falsehood, and reiterate that SDG 6 must not be used as a pretext for misinformation or politicization,” the Indian Ambassador added.
A Pakistani delegate immediately challenged the Indian statement, calling it a case of “guilty conscience.”
“Regrettably, this country has chosen to use today’s meeting to peddle its false narrative and we categorically reject their accusations and unsubstantiated claims,” said Mohammad Faheem, a third secretary at the Pakistan Mission to the UN.
Exercising his right of reply, he said, “It is in fact this country that is using its state sponsored proxies to foment terrorism in Pakistan, besides decade-long state terrorism in illegally occupied Jammu & Kashmir and its blatant violation of UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir.”
Faheem said the the Indian statement about the Indus Waters Treaty was nothing but obfuscation of facts and deliberate misinterpretation of the treaty, aimed at futilely justifying its illegal and unilateral decision to hold the treaty in abeyance.
“Their claims about honoring treaty obligations in good faith cannot be measured by its rhetoric but only by its actions,” the Pakistani delegate said.
“It is this country that, despite being a signatory to the IWT, has on numerous occasions violated various provisions of the treaty, including those related to data sharing. It is this country that has continually obstructed the smooth functioning of the Treaty, including by denying visitation rights for the Indus Waters Treaty commissioner to various projects, delaying and denying data-sharing related to water resources, and blocking the dispute resolution mechanism of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.”
Faheem recalled that in a Supplemental Award announced on 27 June 2025, the Court of Arbitration has found that its competence remains intact.
“This Award has confirmed that the Indus Waters Treaty remains valid and operational, and that this country has no right to take a unilateral action about it.”