Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, has rejected India's portrayal of the Indus Waters Treaty as an asymmetric arrangement, accusing New Delhi of distorting the agreement's history, structure, and purpose in an opinion piece published in Newsweek.
"India has been advancing this narrative with increasing frequency since its unlawful pronouncement in April 2025 to hold the Treaty 'in abeyance.' It appears intended to retrospectively justify a unilateral action that finds no basis either in the Treaty itself or in international law," he wrote.
"The IWT is a binding international agreement concluded on September 19, 1960 after decade-long negotiations facilitated by the World Bank. It was neither an act of Indian generosity nor a concession to Pakistan."
Sheikh rejected India's claims that Pakistan had obstructed Indian hydropower development, noting that recourse to dispute-settlement mechanisms under Article IX represents the exercise of rights expressly afforded by the Treaty rather than obstruction.
He warned that undermining a time-tested water treaty with the aim of weaponising transboundary rivers poses a serious threat to regional peace and stability, reiterating Pakistan's commitment to the agreement's faithful implementation.