Published On 4/6/2026
On Thursday, Pakistan accused its neighbor India of using “water as a weapon,” in statements that intensify tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries that fought a bloody conflict last year.
Pakistan said that two projects that India wants to establish on cross-border waterways would make New Delhi “use water as a weapon” and violate an important treaty between the two countries, threatening retaliation.
India, which announced the two initiatives separately this year, insists it has the right to go ahead with projects related to waters it controls, even though rivers flowing through both countries would be affected.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andarabi told reporters that New Delhi had not consulted Islamabad about the two Chenab River projects, which he said would undermine the Indus Waters Treaty.
He added: “These two projects confirm that India appears to be using water as a weapon. This carries dangerous consequences not only for Pakistan’s economy, but also for regional stability and international peace and security.”
India announced last year that it would suspend the bilateral Indus River Water Treaty, which governs the use of waterways on which hundreds of millions depend, in the run-up to an armed conflict between the two neighboring nuclear-armed countries.
But Andarabi said the treaty was still binding on both governments.
He added, “Any illegal action that threatens Pakistan’s water, food and economic security, as well as the survival and well-being of its 250 million population, is unacceptable.”
He continued, saying, “Pakistan will reserve all options necessary to protect rights under the treaty and protect its vital national interests,” but did not go into details.
Pakistan had previously announced that it would consider any attempt to change the flow of cross-border waterways an “act of war,” noting that there is no mechanism for either country to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement concluded in 1960.
Last May, the Indian government’s National Hydropower Corporation issued a tender notice for a proposed tunnel project that would transport water from the Chenab River to the Beas River Basin.
India’s energy ministry said in January that it was “removing sediments” at the Salal power plant on the Chenab River “following termination of the Indus Water Treaty.”
The Water Treaty provided a rare channel for diplomatic engagement between the two sides until India suspended its participation in it following a bloody attack on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April 2025.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad for supporting the attack, which Pakistan denied. The two countries engaged in a conflict the following month that resulted in the deaths of nearly 70 people on both sides.
