Pakistan asks India to comply with provisions of Indus Water Treaty
Abdul Hadi Mayar Islamabad
Pakistan has strongly condemned the “terror attacks” across Lebanon, where more than 30 people were killed and thousands injured in waves of electronic device explosions, the Foreign Office said on Thursday.
Lebanon’s hospitals were overwhelmed on Tuesday as pagers used by armed group Hezbollah detonated, killing 12 people, including two children, and wounding nearly 3,000 others in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.
The next day, a second deadly wave of unprecedented explosions in Hezbollah’s strongholds killed at least 14 and injured more than 450 — further stoking tensions with Israel.
Lebanese officials said Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations.
The operation was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach, with the group left in disarray on Thursday, hours before a major speech by its beleaguered leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Addressing a weekly briefing in Islamabad, spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: “Pakistan strongly condemns this week’s attacks in Lebanon, carried through detonation of electronic equipments. Use of cyber and electronic means to commit terrorism in foreign countries is reprehensible.
“We condemn terrorism in all forms and manifestations and offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and the people and the government of the Republic of Lebanon.”
She highlighted that the “terror attacks are a manifestation of Israel’s alarming adventurism in the region, which has endangered regional peace and security”.
“Pakistan reaffirms its support to Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and calls upon the international community to take urgent steps to hold Israel to account on its acts of international terrorism and violations of international law,” Baloch said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan on Thursday also said it was committed to implementation of the Indus Water Treaty and expressed the hope that India would also comply with provisions of the treaty.
“Indus Water Treaty has remained an important treaty for decades. Pakistan is committed to its implementation. We expect that India will also remain committed to the treaty,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said.
She was responding a question with regard to a notice served on Pakistan by India in which the latter has demanded a review of the IWT, citing ‘fundamental and unforeseen’ changes in circumstances, as reported by the India media.
“The two countries have the mechanism of Indus Water Commissioners and all issues pertaining to this treaty can be discussed at that forum,” the spokesperson responded.
The Foreign Office spokesperson rejected the explanation presented by Acting Afghan Consul General in Peshawar, Mohibullah Shakir for his act of not standing in respect of the Pakistani national anthem.
“I would like to reiterate that disrespect of national anthem is against diplomatic norms. We consider such acts reprehensible that reject his (Shakir’s) explanation,” she said.
