Post Uri attack, India to review Indus Waters Treaty

Following the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an India Army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, the government on Monday decided to review the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan.

At a meeting of senior officials chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was decided that an inter-ministerial commission would be set up to go into various provisions of the bilateral treaty that was signed in Karachi on September 19,1960, out of Pakistan's fear that since the source of rivers of the Indus basin are in India, it could potentially create droughts and famines in Pakistan during times of war.

"Blood and water cannot flow together," official sources here quoted Modi as saying during the meeting.

The attack at Uri claimed the lives of 18 soldiers.

The meeting decided to look at the full utilisation of the waters of the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum, the three western rivers of the Indus water system that flow through Jammu and Kashmir.

Around 95 percent of the waters of the three eastern rivers of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi is being ustilised by India.

--IANS

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