'Water is our red line': Shehbaz Sharif threatens India with 'direct response' over Indus Treaty

Shehbaz Sharif speaking on eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day

Pakistan has yet again raked up India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), with its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif threatening a “direct response” to New Delhi’s move, which came days after the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir in April last year.“The Prime Minister said that India has proven itself an enemy of peace by unilaterally and illegally suspending the Indus Waters Treaty. He announced that every drop of Pakistan’s water is our red line. There will be no compromise on the water issue. If India does not come to the right path, we will give it a direct response,” the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on X.Sharif, speaking at an event on the eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day (August 14), sought to portray India as an “enemy of peace” over New Delhi’s decision to keep the IWT in abeyance following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 civilians were killed.He said New Delhi had proved itself an “enemy” of peace by putting the treaty in abeyance.“India proved itself an enemy of peace by unilaterally and illegally suspending the Indus Waters Treaty. I declare in clear terms that every single drop of Pakistan’s water is our red line. If India does not come to its senses, it will be responded to directly,” the Pakistani premier added.The military hostilities ended on May 10 after Islamabad sought a ceasefire following India’s air strikes on multiple Pakistani air bases. The conflict erupted after India’s Operation Sindoor in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack.New Delhi kept the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after a Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting on April 23, 2025, and asserted that the conditions under which the treaty was negotiated have “fundamentally changed.”India has asserted the treaty can no longer function in its present form and will remain in abeyance until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” ends its support for cross-border terrorism.The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in September 1960.