ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani delegation formed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to present Islamabad’s perspective on its recent conflict with India wrapped up its Brussels tour on Monday, the chief of the mission said in a statement, calling on European leaders to help steer the region back “from the brink” of war.
Former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was heading the high-powered Pakistani delegation that visited the United States and the United Kingdom before arriving in Brussels last week.
India and Pakistan both dispatched delegations of diplomats and parliamentarians to world capitals. Both Islamabad and New Delhi engaged the international community following their days-long armed conflict in May, which ended in a fragile ceasefire on May 10 brokered by Washington.
During his visit to Brussels, the delegation met the European Union parliament, the EU Commission, the Belgian leadership, members of international think tanks and foreign media. Bhutto Zardari pushed for dialogue and counterterrorism cooperation with India during the tour, warning of the dangers of a nuclear-armed conflict between the two nations.
“Europe, as a champion of the rules-based international order and international law, must help steer the region back from the brink,” Bhutto Zardari wrote on social media platform X.
The former foreign minister highlighted that during his visit to Brussels, the Pakistani delegation called for restraint and dialogue after a “fragile ceasefire.” He said the delegation had also warned of the lowest-ever conflict threshold in South Asia and India’s” weaponization” of water and global mechanisms.
Bhutto Zardari in recent weeks severely criticized India’s move to suspend a decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan in April. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 governs the usage of the Indus river system. The accord has not been revived despite the rivals agreeing on a ceasefire on May 10.
Islamabad had said after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty that it considered any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan to be an “act of war.”
About 80 percent of Pakistani farms depend on the Indus system, as do nearly all hydropower projects serving the country of some 250 million.
Former information minister Sherry Rehman, a prominent member of the delegation, said some members would head back to Pakistan while others would next visit the French city of Strasbourg.
“When the world needs diplomacy, multilateralism and the power of intl law to return to its centerstage, the rules that support order are under strain like never before,” she wrote on social media platform X.
