Pakistani delegation in US to discuss India's violations of Indus Waters Treaty with WB

Pakistani delegation in US to discuss India's violations of Indus Waters Treaty with WB

Washington (Agencies): A four-member Pakistan delegation has arrived in Washington to hold talks with World Bank authorities over India's repeated violations of Indus Waters Treaty.

The delegation, headed by Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf, will apprise the World Bank chief of Pakistan's reservations over the issue and request the global financial institution to play its role as a guarantor.

According to reports, Pakistan officials will hold discussions with the World Bank authorities over Kishenganga and Ratle and other 12 projects undertaken by New Delhi.

On Sunday, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Chaudhry remarked that Pakistan intends to consult with the World Bank over the Kishenganga Dam issue. He was addressing a seminar titled "Pakistan and Unites States A Lasting Partnership" on Saturday.

The statement came in response to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating Kishenganga Dam project on Saturday amid protests from Islamabad, which says the project on a river flowing into Pakistan will disrupt water supplies.

The 330MW Kishenganga hydropower station, work on which started in 2009, is one of the projects that India has fast-tracked in the occupied territory, amid frosty ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

"This region cannot only become self-sufficient in power but also produce for other regions of the country," Modi said in the occupied state's capital, Srinagar. "Keeping that in mind we have been working on various projects here for the past four years."

Pakistan has opposed some of these projects saying they violate a World Bank-brokered treaty on the sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries, upon which 80 percent of its irrigated agriculture depends.