NEW DELHI: Contending that Pakistan’s security forces are extending “active support” to infiltrators, India on Thursday did not rule out reviewing the 56-year-old Indus Water Treaty, underlining that any cooperative arrangement should be based on mutual trust and cooperation.
“For any such treaty to work, it is important that there must be mutual cooperation and trust between both the sides. It cannot be a one-sided affair,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in response to a query.
Swarup added that the preamble of the water-distribution treaty itself made it clear that it was based on “goodwill”. When prodded further, he added that in diplomacy not everything was spelled out.
The treaty inked in September 1960 by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President General Ayub Khyan makes the arrangement for the sharing of the water of six rivers – the Beas, Ravi, Sutlej, Indus, Chenab and the Jhelum.
The treaty has stood the test of the times and is an example of cooperative arrangement between the two countries even through the wars they have fought. The government also said the frequency of infiltration across the Line of Control of heavily armed terrorists belied the Pakistani claim that the border had “water-tight arrangements” on its side.
This was conveyed by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to Pakistan’s envoy to India, Abdul Basit, in demarche on Wednesday. “On the contrary, such bids cannot be continuously mounted without the active and collaborative support of Pakistani security forces,” Jaishankar told the Pakistan envoy.
Swarup also said that unlike in the case of the Pathankot terror strike where Pakistani investigators were allowed to inspect the attacked airbase, India would offer limited co-operation to officials from across the border if they wanted to investigate the Uri attack.
“The foreign secretary offered that if Pakistan wishes to investigate these cross-border attacks, we are ready to provide fingerprints and DNA samples of terrorists killed in the Uri and Poonch incidents. I would like to underline that our offer is limited to providing fingerprints and DNA evidence to Pakistan so that Pakistan can verify it against their database and confirm that the terrorists who attacked the Indian facilities were indeed Pakistani nationals,” he added.
Pak slammed at Saarc anti-terror meet it skipped
New DELHI: Addressing a Saarc counter-terror conference here, IB chief Dineshwar Sharma said the Uri attack was just one of the scores of such acts that originated from Pakistan. Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan chief Aftab Sultan gave the meet a miss.