Indus Waters Treaty: World Bank has no role except facilitator, says Ajay Banga
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Ever since India suspended the bilateral Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 as part of its strong protest against the Pakistan-sponsored April 22 terror attack at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir Islamabad has been boasting that New Delhi cannot do as it involved the World Bank.
The WB has clarified that it had no role in the IWT beyond facilitating it.
After India announced a series of stern measures against Pakistan on April 23, Pakistan said on April 25 that it would approach the World Bank to intervene in this “multilateral” issue.
However, World Bank President Ajay Banga refuted reports suggesting that the WB could intervene and compel India to overturn its decision of holding the IWT in abeyance.
On Friday, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) quoted Ajay Banga on X saying, “We have no role to play beyond a facilitator. There’s a lot of speculation in the media about how the World Bank will step in & fix the problem, but it’s all bunk. The World Bank’s role is merely as a facilitator.”
On April 25, Islamabad rejected the IWT’s suspension as “unilateral and illegal.” Its Foreign Office, and several ministers, even claimed that any attempt to curb Pakistan’s water share in the IWT would be deemed an “act of war.”
The WB chief’s clarification could be a setback to Pakistan as tensions between the two countries escalated after the Pahalgam attack, prompting the two neighbours to downgrade their diplomatic ties and India suspending the IWT with immediqate effct.
The IWT is a water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan, signed on September 19, 1960, in Karachi. The deal was brokered by the World Bank after nine years of negotiations.
On May 4, India curtailed the flow of water through the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River and is now planning similar measures on the Kishanganga Dam along the Jhelum.
The April 22 massacre of 26 Hindu-only tourists, in the presence of their women and children, forced an angry India to announce a series of punitive measures, including the shutdown of the Attari border near Amritsar. The government also cancelled visas for Pakistani nationals under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme, besides blocking more than 15 Pakistani YouTube channels and Instagram accounts of several Pakistani celebrities, including Hania Amir and Mahira Khan.
After the ties were downgraded between the two countries, India retaliated and launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 and targeted terrorist infrastructure at nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). After the missile strikes, Pakistan resorted to heavy shelling, resulting in the death of at least 16 civilians.
