Water issue between Pak-India can assume ‘dangerous proportions’: Pak envoy to UK

LONDON - India wants to control the flow of water to Pakistan, and this issue between the two nations can assume ‘dangerous proportions’, Pakistan’s envoy to the United Kingdom has said.

High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan made these comments at the Conservative Party’s Foreign and Commonwealth Council at the Parliament’s House of Commons, the Daily Times reported.

The talk was followed by a question-answer session where the main focus of the discussion remained the Kashmir dispute and Pakistan’s foreign policy, with particular reference to India, Afghanistan and SAARC, the paper said.

Responding to a question regarding the Indian interest in Kashmir, Hasan said that India wanted to control the flow of water to Pakistan and exploit the situation at will.

He cautioned that India and the international community must pay attention to the brewing tension between the two nuclear states on water issue before it assumes dangerous proportions.

The Pakistan Ambassador also traced the genesis of the Kashmir dispute, and underscored as to how a few individuals of the Indian National Congress and British Raj were able to influence the events that resulted in the dispute of the Kashmir region.

Council Chairman Sir Ronald Halstead, who had invited Hasan, regretted that the Kashmir dispute, since not addressed, remained the main cause for the tension, lack of progress and poverty in the region.

Hasan also underscored the strategic importance of Pakistan, and said that it can make a significant impact at the world stage.

“Pakistan is strategically the most important country in the region as it is situated at the confluence of three main regions, South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East and with the immense wealth of its human and natural resources it can make a significant impact at the world stage,” he said. (ANI)