ISLAMABAD, 31 July 2004 — India and Pakistan failed to resolve their disagreement over Indian plans for a dam in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir but will meet again, their delegates said at the end of two days of talks yesterday.
The meeting was part of the ongoing peace process the two nuclear armed South Asian rivals began at the start of the year, but analysts expect slow progress so long as both sides stick to entrenched positions on their central dispute over Kashmir.
Pakistan’s Water and Power Secretary Ashfaq Mehmood and his Indian counterpart V.K. Duggal described the meeting on the Wullar Barrage issue as “constructive”.
The row over what Pakistan calls the Wullar Barrage and India refers to as the Tulbul Navigation Project was the first subject up for discussion in a series of six dialogue sessions scheduled over the next two weeks. “The observations made were discussed with open minds and it is not always possible to reach conclusions on such technical observations immediately,” V.K. Duggal, India’s Secretary for Water Resources, told reporters, adding the two sides would resume discussions at a later date.
An immediate settlement over the dam on the Jhelum River, which Pakistan fears would slow currents by the time the Jhelum reaches its territory, was always unlikely given the last time the two sides talked about it was in 1998.
“We have agreed that such discussions will continue to find a resolution to the issue under the provisions of the Indus Water Treaty, which is sacrosanct to this whole issue and which both India and Pakistan totally respect,” said Duggal, referring to an accord mediated by the World Bank in 1960.
Under the 1960 Indus Basin Treaty, six rivers stemming or passing through the disputed Kashmir region are equally divided between Pakistan and India. India has rights over the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers while Pakistan has control over the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers.
The two countries are also engaged in talks on another dam on the Chenab River that Pakistan contends will affect its water flow and thus violate the treaty. India holds that the Baglihar dam, also constructed in Indian-administered Kashmir, is within the parameters of the 44-year-old Water Treaty.
A joint statement read by a member of the Pakistani delegation described the talks as “cordial and constructive”, and he said: “Progress has been made.”
The other dialogue sessions, which will take place in both capitals, will address other points of conflict, notably the high altitude battlefield on the Siachen Glacier and the maritime dispute over the Sir Creek estuary, as well as areas for potential cooperation in trade and fighting drug trafficking.
