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| Monday, 13 December 2004 |
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Pakistan, India heading for international arbitration over water dispute ISLAMABAD, Sunday (Xinhua) Pakistan and India are currently engaged in a dialogue process to resolve their problems, but a dispute over water distribution between the two South Asian neighbours may force them to go for an international arbitration. Despite four years of negotiations, construction of Baglihar hydropower project on the river Chenab in the Indian-held Kashmir remains controversial. Pakistan says it breaches a 1960 water treaty on the distribution of six rivers the two countries share. Here in Islamabad, officials are now increasingly dropping hints that Pakistan is most likely to seek the World Bank's intervention since the bank facilitated the water treaty and acts as a guarantor. Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan disclosed recently that Pakistan has approached the World Bank to use its good offices with India so that the matter could be resolved bilaterally. But if all efforts to resolve the issue fail, Pakistan will have no option but to approach the World Bank, under the treaty's provision, for the appointment of a neutral expert to resolve the dispute, Khan said. The water dispute was one of the agenda items of the talks between Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in New Delhi last month. But the two leaders failed to break the deadlock and agreed to hold what was seen as a last round of meeting in the first week of December in a bid to resolve the matter. The proposed meeting, however, could not be held after India asked to put it off and reportedly rejected a Pakistani proposal for talks in mid-December. The growing controversy has failed to deter India from stopping work on the dam which started in 1999 and is likely to be operational by April next year. The dispute over water distribution between Pakistan and India first surfaced in 1953 and it took the two states 12 years to thrash out the problem through a pact called the Indian Basin Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank and signed in 1960. Under the treaty, of the six rivers which all flow from the Indian-held Kashmir, India is allocated waters of the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas while Pakistan had the right to use the western rivers, the Jhelum, Indus and Chenab except for domestic and non- consumptive use by India. The 1960 treaty allows either side to unilaterally seek inspection of the other's projects by neutral technical experts in case of any dispute. A provision provides recourse to the international arbitration if the two fail to resolve any dispute. Pakistan has serious reservations on the design of the dam as it fears the construction of spillway gates will give India control of waters in breach of the treaty and will deprive it of up to 8,000 cusec of waters daily during the harvesting seasons, badly affecting its agriculture. India, however, maintains the Baglihar dam construction does not violate the treaty as it has not dug any canals to take water from the dam for irrigation purposes. Pakistan and India are also discussing a similar dispute on another project that India initiated in 1984 on the river Jehlum on which Pakistan has exclusive rights under the treaty. India stopped the work on Wullar barrage, also known as Tulbal Navigation Project, three years later after Pakistan raised the objections. The two South Asian countries are currently holding a composite dialogue process to resolve all their outstanding disputes including the key Kashmir dispute. They have already completed the first round and the second phase is to start this month. |
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