New Delhi: According to government sources on Friday, India has for the first time sent a notice to Pakistan demanding a review and modification of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) due to Islamabad's "intransigence" to comply with the pact's dispute redressal mechanism, which was signed over sixty years ago and deals with issues pertaining to rivers that flow across their borders.
The warning was delivered by India's Indus water commissioner to his Pakistani counterpart on January 25 in accordance with the terms of the treaty, and it requests a response from Islamabad within 90 days so that intergovernmental negotiations may begin to "rectify the material breach" of the IWT.
According to government sources, India's request to review and modify the accord is not limited to the dispute resolution process alone, and that the negotiations could encompass a wide range of articles of the treaty, taking into account the lessons learned over the last 62 years.—Inputs from Agencies
