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The suspension of the river treaty follows a deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir
Published : 24 Apr 2025, 02:12 PM
A Pakistan government minister has said India's suspension of a river treaty following a deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir was an act of "water warfare", underlining a sharp plunge in relations between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Gunmen killed 26 men at a tourist site in the Pahalgam area of Indian Kashmir on Tuesday in the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Wednesday a cabinet committee on security was briefed on the cross-border linkages of the attack and New Delhi would suspend a six-decade-old river-sharing treaty as well as close the only land crossing between the neighbours.
"India's reckless suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is an act of water warfare; a cowardly, illegal move," Pakistan's Power Minister Awais Lekhari said in a post on X late on Wednesday night.
Misri, the top diplomat in India's foreign ministry, did not offer any proof of the involvement or provide any more details.
New Delhi will also pull out its defence attaches in Pakistan and reduce staff size at its mission in Islamabad to 30 from 55, Misri said.
India has summoned the top diplomat at the Pakistan embassy in New Delhi, local media reported, to give notice that all defence advisors in the Pakistani mission were persona non grata and given a week to leave, one of the measures Misri announced.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for an all-party meeting with opposition parties to brief them on the government's response to the attack.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Pakistan embassy in New Delhi's diplomatic enclave on Thursday, shouting slogans and pushing against police barricades.
In Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Security Committee to discuss Pakistan's response, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on X.
The Indus water treaty, mediated by the World Bank and signed in 1960, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbours and regulated the sharing of water. It had withstood two wars between the neighbours since then and severe strains in ties at other times.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries were weak even before the latest measures were announced as Pakistan had expelled India's envoy and not posted its own ambassador in New Delhi after India revoked the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir in 2019.
India and Pakistan control separate parts of Kashmir and both claim it in full.
Tuesday's attack is seen as a setback to what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the special status Jammu and Kashmir state enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.
India has often accused Islamic Pakistan of involvement in an insurgency in Kashmir, but Islamabad says it only offers diplomatic and moral support to a demand for self-determination.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir since the uprising began in 1989, but it has tapered off in recent years and tourism has surged in the scenic region.
