Shehbaz Sharif Presses Indus Treaty Rights at SCO as India Links Cooperation to Security

Water Rights and Terrorism Compete for Attention in Tianjin

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif brought the Indus Waters Treaty to the centre of his address at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, urging members to honour bilateral agreements and protect uninterrupted access to water. His appeal challenged India's decision to hold the treaty in abeyance after the April attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 26 people.

The dispute placed a compact signed in 1960 alongside the summit's debate over terrorism. India pressed for accountability and stronger action against extremist violence. Pakistan argued that a legal agreement governing water supplies must continue to operate despite political confrontation. A ruling in The Hague rejecting unilateral suspension gave Islamabad a legal argument to carry into the meeting.

The SCO declaration condemned the Pahalgam attack and also mentioned attacks in Pakistan. Both governments therefore addressed a gathering that rejected terrorism, while presenting different arguments about what regional trust requires. India focused on security and responsibility for violence. Pakistan stressed treaty obligations, dialogue and the protection of livelihoods dependent on river flows.

Sharif also connected the water dispute to Pakistan's exposure to floods, its losses from terrorism and its plans for regional trade. His address ranged from Afghanistan and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor to Gaza and Iran. Yet the most immediate disagreement concerned a practical question for people downstream: whether the rules governing the Indus basin would continue to function while relations between India and Pakistan remained strained.

What Sharif Asked SCO Members to Protect

Sharif's appeal centred on three requests: respect existing treaties without interruption, pursue structured and comprehensive dialogue over longstanding disputes, and cooperate on shared challenges such as floods and security threats across borders. He presented those commitments as essential to trust within the SCO and to stability across South and Central Asia.

Addressing the plenary, Sharif said member countries should uphold bilateral agreements, particularly where people depend on predictable access to water. Pakistan's prime minister stated:

We expect SCO member countries to follow all bilateral treaties. Uninterrupted access to due share of water as per existing treaties among SCO members.

Pakistan's position is that its share of Indus basin water is a treaty right. Islamabad argues that an agreement which survived wars cannot be paused or reshaped by one government acting alone. Sharif used the ruling in The Hague to reinforce that position before other regional leaders and to place the dispute within the SCO's stated support for international law.

Sharif paired that argument with an appeal for dialogue, diplomacy and consultation. He presented negotiations as the workable route to resolving disputes and linked them to Pakistan's willingness to engage constructively with its neighbours. The timing mattered: the Pahalgam killings had sharpened India's demands for accountability, while Pakistan faced growing concern about the security of its water supplies.

India Put Terrorism at the Centre of Its Message

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused his plenary remarks on threats that New Delhi regards as barriers to peace. He called for stronger collective action against radicalisation and the financing of terrorism, presenting action against terrorism in all its forms as a condition for stability.

Modi described India's central concern in these terms:

Terrorism and separatism remain among the most serious threats to global peace.

India has linked cooperation with Pakistan to verifiable action against groups it accuses Islamabad of tolerating. Its decision to put the Indus treaty in abeyance, meaning to pause its operation, brought that security position directly into the management of shared rivers. Pakistan insists that the treaty's obligations must continue independently of the wider dispute.

The SCO declaration's condemnation of Pahalgam and call for accountability supported India's demand for a firm response to terrorism. Its references to attacks in Pakistan also placed Islamabad's security concerns within the collective statement. The declaration gave both governments a common rejection of violence, while their positions on the water agreement remained opposed.

How the 1960 Treaty Divides the Rivers

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960 with the World Bank acting as broker and guarantor. It allocates the basin's rivers between India and Pakistan, establishes rules for water projects and provides institutions for cooperation and dispute settlement. Its survival through periods of conflict has made it a rare source of continuity in the relationship.

The agreement covers six main rivers. India has full rights over the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. Pakistan received rights over the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. The western rivers carry the larger volume of water, making their management especially important to Pakistan.

India retains limited rights on the western rivers, including irrigation, storage of small volumes of water and hydropower generation through run of river designs. Such projects generate electricity from flowing water and are intended to operate within rules that protect Pakistan's use downstream.

The treaty goes into engineering detail because the design and operation of an upstream project can affect when water reaches farms and communities below it. Its requirements cover matters such as spillway gates, which control releases, and pondage, the water held for a plant's operation. Those details matter to irrigation schedules as well as electricity generation.

Pakistan's concern is that upstream facilities should not acquire the ability to manipulate releases in ways that harm its irrigation cycles. India must therefore account for detailed project requirements under the treaty. Disputes over new schemes can turn on individual design features, requiring close technical examination rather than a simple political agreement.

Why the Ruling in The Hague Matters

India's announcement raised a legal question about whether one party could stop operating the treaty outside its agreed procedures. The pact contains no clause allowing unilateral suspension for reasons outside those procedures. The ruling in The Hague affirmed that India could not unilaterally hold it in abeyance.

Pakistan has relied on that finding to argue that the treaty remains binding. Under the legal position described in the ruling, changes require agreement between the parties, while disputes and alleged breaches belong within the treaty's established processes. A political announcement by one government does not replace those arrangements.

The agreement governs much more than a division of water. It contains institutions, engineering standards, operating requirements and procedures for resolving disagreement. Pakistan's argument is that suspending it would also set aside the oversight and technical safeguards built up around the river system over decades.

Sharif's intervention sought to connect that legal position with the SCO's support for an order based on rules. The summit itself did not resolve the dispute. India's position on security and Pakistan's insistence on continued treaty operation remained competing demands, even as the arbitration finding strengthened Islamabad's case against a unilateral pause.

The Treaty Already Provides Routes for Disputes

The Permanent Indus Commission is the first forum for routine cooperation, operational concerns and complaints. Its standing arrangement allows the two countries to raise problems through their commissioners rather than immediately turning each disagreement into a wider diplomatic confrontation.

When the commissioners cannot settle a difference, the treaty provides further routes. Technical questions can go to a neutral expert. More complex legal disputes can go to a Court of Arbitration, often supported administratively by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The choice of mechanism depends on the nature of the disagreement.

Projects including Kishanganga and Ratle have moved through these mechanisms. Their treatment shows how the treaty anticipates disagreements over infrastructure and creates ways to examine them. Technical interpretation and legal arbitration are part of the agreement's normal operation.

For people who rely on the rivers, the practical purpose is continuity. Engineers and commissioners can examine a disputed design, while legal proceedings address questions about the agreement itself. Pakistan argues that these channels must remain available and functioning even when political relations deteriorate.

How the Dispute Reached the SCO Summit

The confrontation brought together a treaty dating from 1960, a deadly attack in April and a subsequent legal challenge. By the Tianjin gathering, both governments were presenting those events through their own priorities: water rights for Pakistan and accountability for terrorism for India.

• 1960: India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty with World Bank support, dividing rights over the basin's eastern and western rivers.
• April 2025: An attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, killed 26 people.
• After the attack: India announced that it would hold the treaty in abeyance, and Pakistan challenged the pause.
• Before the Tianjin appeal: A ruling in The Hague affirmed that India could not unilaterally suspend the treaty.
• At the Tianjin summit: Sharif urged respect for treaty commitments, Modi pressed for stronger action against terrorism, and the SCO declaration condemned the Pahalgam attack.

No date was given for a settlement or a new negotiating round on the water dispute. The immediate issue remained how the treaty's institutions and obligations would function amid the political confrontation.

Why Water Certainty Matters During Floods and Shortages

The Indus basin irrigates Punjab and Sindh, supports food production and supplies cities across Pakistan. In an economy with a large agricultural sector, the timing and predictability of river flows affect planting, harvesting, energy planning and public health. Those connections explain why Pakistan's leadership treats water as a national security concern.

Pakistan also faces overlapping pressures from climate and infrastructure. Melting glaciers, erratic monsoon patterns and extreme rainfall make water management harder. Limited storage leaves planners with little room to absorb sudden changes, while sediment accumulating in reservoirs reduces their ability to hold water and spread supplies across seasons.

The country contributes less than one percent of global emissions, yet the 2022 floods displaced millions of people. More recent torrential rain and cloudbursts again overwhelmed districts along major rivers. Flooding and concern about dependable supplies therefore form part of the same management problem: water can arrive in destructive quantities at one time and be difficult to store for later use.

Sharif thanked countries that supported relief during the heavy floods and warned that failure to act on climate would bring further losses of life and livelihoods. His treaty appeal placed those domestic pressures before the SCO, arguing that predictable cooperation over rivers is especially valuable when weather patterns are becoming harder to manage.

Pakistan Presented Its Own Security Grievances

Sharif cited Pakistan's losses from terrorism as part of his wider argument for regional cooperation. Pakistan says tens of thousands of people have died and that militant violence has caused heavy economic damage. He referred to the Jaffar Express hijacking and alleged foreign involvement in attacks in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan's prime minister also stated his government's rejection of terrorism:

We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations with the fullest force at our command.

The SCO declaration brought the Pahalgam killings and attacks in Pakistan into a shared statement against violence. India sought accountability for those responsible for terrorism and those supporting it. Pakistan sought recognition of its own losses while maintaining that the legal protection of water access should continue.

Both governments faced strong domestic pressures. Indian leaders were under pressure to connect cooperation with credible action against militants. Pakistani leaders faced water scarcity and a public wary of any concession that might reduce flows or give India greater influence over upstream releases. Those pressures help explain why the two positions remained difficult to reconcile in Tianjin.

Afghanistan, CPEC and Meetings Beyond the Water Dispute

Sharif linked a peaceful Afghanistan to expanded regional trade, arguing that stability there would open routes benefiting the wider SCO. He promoted the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC, as an example of infrastructure connecting economies through roads, energy and ports.

Pakistan's proposal was to widen economic cooperation alongside work on security. Sharif supported broader Chinese initiatives and welcomed the Tianjin Declaration. His argument connected prosperity with stronger regional ties, presenting transport and energy links as ways to build shared interests even when political tensions remain high.

Sharif also condemned violence in Gaza and strikes against Iran, an SCO member. Those remarks extended his address beyond South Asia and placed Pakistan's treaty appeal within a broader statement on regional and international stability.

On the summit's margins, Sharif met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Their discussions explored trade, energy connections and possible projects linked to the next phase of CPEC. Pakistani officials also engaged Chinese provincial and municipal leaders, including a delegation from Tianjin Binhai New Area, on investment opportunities and industrial cooperation.

What the Summit Changed for the Indus Dispute

Tianjin gave India and Pakistan a prominent forum to present their positions, but it produced no settlement of the water dispute. Sharif placed Pakistan's claim to uninterrupted treaty rights before regional leaders. Modi secured a setting in which collective condemnation of Pahalgam reinforced India's demand for action against terrorism.

The next practical work belongs within the treaty's existing channels: the Permanent Indus Commission for technical and operational issues, followed where necessary by a neutral expert or arbitration. The ruling in The Hague supports Pakistan's argument that the agreement continues to govern despite India's declaration of abeyance.

Political decisions will still affect the pace of engagement. India wants credible action against militant groups, while Pakistan wants certainty that its water rights and the rules governing upstream projects will remain intact. For farmers, cities and electricity planners, the concrete need is a working system that keeps river management predictable while those wider disagreements continue.

Key Points

• Shehbaz Sharif urged SCO members in Tianjin to honour bilateral treaties and protect uninterrupted access to agreed water shares.
• India put the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after the April Pahalgam attack killed 26 people.
• A ruling in The Hague affirmed that India could not unilaterally suspend the treaty.
• The 1960 agreement assigns the eastern rivers to India and the western rivers to Pakistan, with limited Indian uses permitted on the western rivers.
• The Permanent Indus Commission, neutral experts and arbitration provide established routes for handling disagreements.
• Narendra Modi pressed for stronger action against terrorism, and the SCO declaration condemned Pahalgam while also mentioning attacks in Pakistan.
• Sharif linked water security to flooding and climate pressures, supported regional trade through CPEC and held talks with Iranian and Chinese counterparts.
• The summit did not settle the dispute, and no date was given for a settlement or a new negotiating round.