Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Chaudhry has remarked that Islamabad intends to take up the issue of controversial Kishanganga Dam with the World Bank.
Addressing a seminar titled ‘Pakistan and Unites States: A Lasting Partnership’ here, Chaudhry said his country will take up issues related to the Indus Waters Treaty, Kishanganga Dam and Ratle Hydroelectric Plant with Jim Yong Kim, the president of the global financial institution.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Kishanganga Dam project on Saturday amid protests from Pakistan, which says the project on a river flowing into Pakistan will disrupt water supplies.
The 330MW Kishanganga hydropower station, work on which started in 2009, is one of the projects that India has fast-tracked in the volatile state amid frosty ties between the nuclear-armed countries.
Pakistan has opposed some of the projects by India, saying they violate a World Bank-mediated treaty on the sharing of the Indus River and its tributaries upon which 80 percent of its irrigated agriculture depends.
“Pakistan is seriously concerned about the inauguration [of the Kishanganga plant],” Foreign Ministry had said in a statement on Friday. “Pakistan believes that the inauguration of the project without the resolution of the dispute is tantamount to violation of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)”.
Black day was observed across Held Kashmir in protest against PM Modi’s visit to the territory. Shops and businesses remained closed while traffic was off the road.
The project was delayed for several years as Pakistan dragged India to the International Court of Arbitration, which ruled in India’s favour in 2013. India has said the hydropower projects underway in Jammu and Kashmir are ‘run-of-the-river’ schemes that use the river’s flow and elevation to generate electricity rather than large reservoirs, and do not contravene the treaty.
While responding to US moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the ambassador reiterated that Pakistan holds reservations on Washington’s decision.
On May 14, the new US embassy in Israel officially opened in Jerusalem as US President Donald Trump formally recognised the holy city as the country’s capital.
The opening comes after a day of celebratory festivities in Israel juxtaposed with mass protests along the border of Israel that left at least 60 Palestinians dead and more than 1,000 injured.
Published in Daily Times, May 21st 2018.
