Pakistan PM Sharif says water must never be weaponised at SCO summit

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared on Tuesday that water must never be weaponized, using his address at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit to highlight the ongoing dispute over the Indus Waters Treaty with India. Speaking at the SCO Council of Heads of State meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Sharif described water as the "lifeblood" of the region and stressed that shared water resources cannot be used as instruments of coercion or political leverage. His remarks came one day after India rejected a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which had affirmed that the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty remains legally binding.