Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has slammed India’s attempts to weaponize the Indus River as “unacceptable and regrettable,” declaring water access a non-negotiable right for Pakistan’s 240 million people.
At the Pakistan-Türkiye-Azerbaijan summit in Lachin, Sharif warned India’s threats to block water flow under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) would never succeed.
His remarks followed India’s unilateral suspension of the IWT after April’s Pahalgam attack, a move Pakistan calls a violation of international law and an “act of war”.
Sharif reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to resolving Kashmir through dialogue aligned with UN resolutions and Kashmiri aspirations. He dismissed India’s allegations of Pakistani involvement in Pahalgam as “baseless,” noting Pakistan had offered an impartial investigation, an offer India rejected to instead “pursue aggression”. India’s recent actions, including fast-tracking dams on Chenab and Jhelum rivers, aim to choke Pakistan’s water supply while annexing Kashmir.
Highlighting Pakistan’s sacrifices, which include 90,000 lives lost and $600 billion in economic losses since 2001, Sharif condemned India for using terrorism accusations as geopolitical tools. He referenced the 2019 Pulwama crisis, where India launched airstrikes without evidence of Pakistani involvement: “India blames us without proof, then uses it to justify aggression”.
With Türkiye and Azerbaijan backing Pakistan, Sharif hailed the alliance as a “fortress of shared values” against regional threats. Turkish President Erdoğan and Azerbaijani President Aliyev pledged solidarity on Kashmir, Karabakh, and Cyprus. Sharif specifically praised Erdoğan’s resolve against the PKK and thanked Aliyev for hospitality, framing the summit as a step toward “new heights of cooperation”.