World Bank discusses with India on Indus Water Treaty

‘Pakistan habitual of creating controversies on Power Projects

NEW DELHI:

Jammu Tawi, January 5:  India is reported to have conveyed to
Washington that Pakistan was responsible for raising one hurdle or the
other in the completion of power projects in Jammu and Kashmir which
actually is the basis for differences on the Indus Water Treaty of
1960.
India today asked the World Bank not to rush in to broker a deal on its differences with Pakistan over Kishenganga and Rattle project, asserting that the differences can be resolved bilaterally or through a neutral expert. India's position was conveyed during a meeting World Bank representative Ian H Solomon held with senior officials of External Affairs and Water Resources ministries.

Solomon is here as part of World Bank's efforts to break the deadlock between the two neighbours on the Kishenganga and Ratle project which are coming up in Jammu and Kashmir.

In the meeting, the Indian side, led by Joint Secretary in the MEA, Gopal Baglay, gave a presentation on the two projects and insisted that be a neutral expert should look into the issues as objections raised by Pakistan on technical issues, Government sources said.

They said India also maintained that the design of the projects do not violate the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty (IWT). Under the IWT, signed by India and Pakistan in 1960, the World Bank has a specific role of dispute resolution between the two countries.

It has also conveyed to the US and the World Bank that time has
come to review the Treaty because “India is not interested in
exporting water to Pakistan which is simply exporting terror to
India.”
India has explained to the World Bank and to the US that the
state was under severe power shortage which resulted in prolonged
outages. The state Government has decided to purchase additional power
from the Northern Gird to make up for the power shortage when the
state has the capacity of generating 20,000 MWs of power.

The US has asked India and Pakistan to work together bilaterally to
resolve any differences over the key Indus Water Treaty. US Secretary
of State John Kerry spoke to Pakistani Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq
Dar over phone on the Indus Water Treaty issue.
“I can confirm that he (Kerry) did speak on the 29th of December with
Finance Minister Dar. I am not going to read that out in any great
detail,” US State Department spokesperson John Kirby has said.