Shehbaz Sharif says any Indus treaty violation by India will be 'an act of war'

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has warned that Islamabad will treat any violation of the Indus Waters Treaty by India as an act of war, raising the temperature in a dispute over the shared rivers that has run since India froze the treaty last year.

Sharif spoke on Wednesday at a joint press appearance in Islamabad with the visiting Maldivian president, after delegation-level talks between the two countries. Most of his remarks were about water.

“Let it be known to all and sundry that any violation in this regard will be regarded by Pakistan as an act of war,” he said. “Our position is clear. Water is a lifeline for humanity, particularly for lower riparian countries.”

He said water remained a “red line” for Pakistan, that legally binding treaties had to be respected, and that shared water must never be weaponised. Pakistan had made the same case at international forums, including the UN General Assembly, he said, and had “serious concerns” about India’s decision to suspend the treaty, which he called a unilateral violation.

There was no immediate response from New Delhi.

What the treaty does

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960 with the World Bank as broker. It gives Pakistan most of the water of the western rivers, the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, on which much of its farming depends. India has largely unrestricted use of the eastern rivers, the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

India announced in April 2025 that it was placing the treaty “in abeyance” after a deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan. Pakistan denies any role and argues that the treaty has no provision for one side to suspend it.

Why it is flaring now

Islamabad accuses India of pressing ahead with reservoir, expansion and diversion projects on the treaty rivers, though it has not set out which ones it means. Pakistani officials have also reported unusual fluctuations in river flows recently. For a country whose farms rely so heavily on the western rivers, any sign of change upstream is treated as a security matter, not just a technical one.

Sharif’s warning came at a busy diplomatic moment for Pakistan. Its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was in Tehran on Tuesday as Islamabad tries to mediate between Iran and the United States. On the same day as Sharif’s remarks, Pakistan signed a defence industry agreement with Turkiye, Qatar and Indonesia in Doha.

The choice of setting was notable too. Sharif made the threat not at a domestic rally but at a formal appearance with a visiting head of state from South Asia, a neighbour of India, ensuring the message would travel well beyond Pakistan.