ISLAMABAD:
Accusing India of waging "fifth-generation warfare", Pakistan said
New Delhi had failed to inform it about the release of water from a dam that
could cause flooding across the border. India, however, rejected the claim
saying that under the terms of a water treaty between the two nations it had
informed Pakistan about the release of excess water late on Monday when it
crossed a certain threshold.

Relations between
the neighbors, already hostile, have been further strained over India's
decision this month to revoke the special status of its portion of the Kashmir
region that both countries claim. Pakistan reacted with fury, cutting transport
and trade links and expelling India's ambassador in retaliation. Islamabad said
the unexpected release of water into the River Sutlej that flows from India to
Pakistan was part of an attempt by New Delhi to flout the longstanding treaty
between the countries.

"They try to
isolate diplomatically, they try to strangulate economically, they're trying to
strangulate our water resources - and water automatically will have an impact
on your economy, your agriculture and your irrigation," Muzammil Hussain,
chairman of the Pakistani government's Water and Power Development Authority
(WAPDA), told Reuters. India was using its position upstream to wage
"fifth-generation warfare" on the country, said Hussain.

India's federal
water resources ministry told Reuters late on Monday that under the treaty
advance information needs to be given in a situation when "extraordinary
discharges of water from reservoirs and flood flows" could harm the other
party. Until today no such extraordinary discharges had been observed on the
Indian side in the current flood season. At 1900 IST (1330 GMT), the flow of
Sutlej river reached the threshold level of high flood and the same was
conveyed to Pakistan, the ministry said in a statement, adding that it is
committed to the treaty.

Pakistani
emergency authorities were preparing for minor flooding in several areas in
Punjab state on Monday as a result of the unexpected rise in water flow, though
it was not clear if any had occurred. "India did not communicate the
release of water to Pakistan," Khurram Shahzed, director general of Punjab
Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), told Reuters.

India and
Pakistan have long argued over water resources. A World Bank-mediated
arrangement known as the Indus Water Treaty splits the Indus River and its
tributaries - which 80 percent of Pakistan's irrigated agriculture depends on -
between the countries. India, which lies upstream, threatened in February to
stop sharing excess water with Pakistan after a suicide bomb attack by a
Pakistan-based militant group in Kashmir that killed 40 Indian paramilitary
police.

Hussain said
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "threatened very clearly that he
could stop water to Pakistan. He couldn't care less (for) the treaties".
In 2016, after suspending a meeting on the Indus Water Treaty, Modi told
government officials that "blood and water cannot flow together".
India says a program of maximizing its water usage by building hydroelectric
plants is in line with the treaty. - Reuters