Pakistan, India to begin talks on Wullar barrage-Tulbul project

ISLAMABAD: India and Pakistan will tomorrow begin four-day talks here on the Wullar barrage-Tulbul navigation project as part of the bilateral dialogue process that was revived earlier this year after a two-year gap in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

The Indian side will be led by Water Resources Secretary Dhruv Vijai Singh while Water and Power Secretary Javed Iqbal will head the Pakistani team.

Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal met Secretary Iqbal yesterday ahead of the parleys.

Earlier this year, the Home and Interior Secretaries and the Commerce Secretaries of the two countries held talks on ways to boost counter-terrorism and trade cooperation.

India started work on the Tulbul navigation project at the mouth of the Wullar lake in Jammu and Kashmir in 1985 to make the Jhelum river navigable in summer.

The project was stopped after Pakistan complained that it violated the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960.

Pakistan claimed the project could be used by India to control the flow of the Jhelum, a charge denied by New Delhi.