ICA decision: Govt misled people on Kishanganga, says PTI

Claimed as a victory, the verdict guarantees ‘only a minimum flow of water for Pakistan’.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday criticised the government for misleading people about the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) decision on plea against Kishanganga dam being built by India on River Neelum in Kashmir seen as a threat to water security.

The government claimed the decision as a victory but in reality it has undermined long term water inflows by guaranteeing only a minimum flow of water for Pakistan, PTI Central Information Secretary Shireen Mazari said at a press conference.

There were two pleas relating to this issue, the project should be stopped as the legitimate water flow to Pakistan was being interrupted because of the design of the project. Many experts felt at the time of going to the ICA that Pakistan went with the wrong plea, that the project be stopped, she said.

Already in the earlier announced partial award it was clear that the Indus Water Treaty did not preclude dam construction per se and Pakistan should have gone beyond this Treaty to object to the actual design itself and to give all the relevant data. Yet this did not happen.



Mazari said a reading of the detailed judgement shows clearly that either the so-called experts representing Pakistan’s case were incompetent or deliberately in league with India to undermine Pakistan’s interests. Repeatedly the ICA in its judgement refers to Pakistan not having supplied essential data including on “current or anticipated agricultural uses of water from the Kishanganga”.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2013.