Islamabad, January 19
History turned full circle when Pakistan's State Finance Minister Umer Ayub Khan signed the petition to the World Bank raising a dispute over the hydro-power Baglihar project under the Indus Waters
Treaty. The treaty was inked in 1960 by his grandfather Field Marshal Ayub Khan,with the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Umer Ayub Khan, son of former Pakistan Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, is the Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs in Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's Cabinet.
He signed Pakistan's petition seeking the appointment of a neutral arbitrator by the World Bank to resolve the dispute with India over the Baglihar project being constructed in Jammu and Kashmir.
The petition was filed before the World Bank President James D. Wolfenson at its headquarters in Washington by Pakistan's Ambassador to US Jahangir Karamat yesterday.
Meanwhile, the World Bank said it was not a “guarantor” of the Indus Water Treaty under which Pakistan filed a petition seeking its arbitration to end the stand-off with India on Baglihar hydropower project but has a role to play in the appointment of a neutral expert and Court of Arbitration to resolve the differences between the two countries.
“The World Bank is a signatory to the treaty for certain specified purposes. It is not a guarantor of the treaty. Many of the purposes for which the World Bank signed it have been completed”, the bank said in a write-up posted on its website. —
PTI
