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The Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in its present form will not function again and Pakistan has shown no signs of ending cross-border terrorism against India -- a prerequisite for resuming cooperation under the over 65-year-old pact, government sources said on Monday. For any future reactivation of the river water-sharing provisions, the treaty would need to be renegotiated in a modified format -- a step that remains contingent on Islamabad permanently halting its support for terrorism directed against India, they said. According to the sources, Pakistan is attempting to push a false narrative claiming that India's decision to keep the treaty in abeyance is causing water scarcity. In reality, a significant volume of the water Pakistan receives is lost due to its own lack of storage infrastructure, rampant leakages and ongoing water-sharing disputes among its provinces. Although India is not actively looking to withdraw from the IWT at this stage, the sources stressed that as a sovereign .
India has stanched the flow of water through the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River and is planning similar measures at the Kishanganga Dam on the Jhelum River, a source said. The source familiar with the matter said these hydroelectric dams -- Baglihar in Ramban in Jammu and Kishanganga in north Kashmir -- offer India the ability to regulate the timing of water releases. India's decision to suspend the decades-old treaty follows the killing of 26 people, mostly tourists, in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. The Indus Waters Treaty, brokered by the World Bank, has governed the use of the Indus River and its tributaries between India and Pakistan since 1960. The Baglihar Dam has been a longstanding point of contention between the two neighbours, with Pakistan having sought World Bank arbitration in the past. The Kishanganga Dam has faced legal and diplomatic scrutiny, especially regarding its impact on the Neelum River, a tributary of the Jhelum.
A Pakistani delegation arrived here on Sunday evening as part of Neutral Expert proceedings to inspect two hydroelectric power projects in Jammu and Kashmir under the Indus Water Treaty, officials said. This is the first visit by a Pakistani delegation to Jammu and Kashmir in more than five years under the dispute settlement mechanism of the 1960 Treaty. India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) after nine years of negotiations, with the World Bank being a signatory of the pact which sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two sides on the use of waters of a number of cross-border rivers. A three-member Pakistan delegation inspected the Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai hydroelectric power projects under the provisions of the IWT for the last time in January 2019, before the ties between the two countries froze following the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. The officials said the visiting experts including Pakistanis wil