Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has warned that India’s decision to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance has created a new challenge for Islamabad, saying Pakistan now faces the possibility of India using water as a weapon by withholding supplies when they are needed for crops and releasing them when they are not.
“It's untouchable because it is an international agreement and this time around the Indian government has unilaterally held it in abeyance and that sort of creates a new challenge that first time probably water has been weaponized in modern history and we now face this threat that you know they can use water as a weapon to deny Pakistan water when it needs for its crops and release it when we don't need it,” he said at an Asia Society event.
“So these dams that we are constructing would also be our buffer but I think at the same time we cannot let this go unnoticed. We are using all the diplomatic," he added.
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Pakistan's PM Shehbaz Sharif on India and IWT
The remarks come amid renewed tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over the Indus Waters Treaty, with Pakistan repeatedly raising concerns over the impact of India’s decision to suspend the pact.
{{/usCountry}}The remarks come amid renewed tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over the Indus Waters Treaty, with Pakistan repeatedly raising concerns over the impact of India’s decision to suspend the pact.
{{/usCountry}}The issue was also raised by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the eve of the country’s Independence Day, when he warned India against threatening Pakistan’s water supplies and said Islamabad would give a “direct response” if its access to water was jeopardised.
Speaking at an event, Sharif said Pakistan wanted peace and not war, but cautioned that its desire for peace should not be mistaken for weakness.
“Every drop of water is our red line,” Sharif said, as quoted in a report by the Associated Press. He warned that Pakistan would respond if India threatened its water supplies, adding that any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty would draw a strong response.
Sharif’s remarks came in the backdrop of the four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan in May 2025, which followed the Pahalgam terror attack and further strained ties between the two countries.
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India on Indus Waters Treaty
India had decided to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance following the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed.
The Cabinet Committee on Security met on April 23, a day after the attack, following which India announced that the treaty would remain in abeyance. New Delhi said the circumstances and conditions under which the treaty had been negotiated had fundamentally changed.
India has maintained that the treaty cannot function in its present form and will remain in abeyance until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” ends its support for cross-border terrorism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also defended the decision, saying that “water and blood cannot flow together”. The government has described keeping the treaty in abeyance as part of the measures taken in response to the Pahalgam attack.
A fortnight after the terror attack, India and Pakistan exchanged missile, drone and other strikes before a ceasefire brought an end to the four-day military conflict in May 2025.
India has since maintained its position on the treaty.
“India's position on the Indus Water Treaty is consistent. The IWT stands in abeyance in response to Pakistan's continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Pakistan must credibly and irrevocably abjure its support for cross-border terrorism,” Jaiswal had said.
His clarification came after a Pakistan minister issued a stark warning to India over the treaty, saying Islamabad would “cut off those hands” that he claimed sought to control the Indus water.