New Delhi (Reuters) -India will never restore the Indus Waters treaty with Islamabad, and the water that flows to Pakistan will be redirected for internal use, said the Interior Minister Amit Shah in an interview with Times of India on Saturday.
India has placed its participation in the 1960 Convention in “Aweyance” that controls the use of the Indus River system, after 26 civilians in the Indian Kashmir were killed in what Delhi described as a terrorist act. The treaty had guaranteed water access for 80% of Pakistan farms via three rivers from India.
Pakistan has denied the involvement in the incident, but the agreement remains dormant despite a cease-fire agreed by the two nuclear arming neighbors last month after their worst fights in decades.
“No, it will never be restored,” Shah The Daily said.
“We will take water that flowed to Pakistan to Rajasthan by building a channel. Pakistan will be starving from water that it is wrong,” said Shah, referring to the northwestern Indian state.
The last comments of Shah, the most powerful cabinet minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi cabinet, have reduced the hope of Islamabad on negotiations on the Convention in the short term.
Last month, Reuters reported that India is planning the water that pulls it dramatically to increase a large river that feeds Pakistani farms downstream, as part of retaliation actions.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to Reuters's request for comments.
But it has said in the past that the Convention does not have a provision for one side to unilaterally withdraw and that every blocking of river water that flows to Pakistan will be considered “an act of war”.
Islamabad also investigates a legal challenge for India's decision to put the treaty awaiting international law.
($ 1 = 86,5600 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed; Edit by Jacqueline Wong)
