NEW YORK: Pakistan has decried the use of water as an `instrument of coercion and war` while asserting that access to water was a fundamental right that must be protected at all times.

Speaking in the Open Debate of the United Nations Security Council on Water, Peace and Security on Tuesday, Pakistan`s Ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi said, `Pakistan denounces any such practice, real or threatened, as we believe it to be inconsistent with the precepts of international humanitarian law.

She described the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, between Pakistanand India, with the World Bank as guarantor, as `a model of what can be achieved through bilateral agreements`.

Earlier, the UN secretary general, in his address to the council, also cited the treaty as an example of positive cooperation.

Ms Lodhi said the treaty also provided a good case study of what could go wrong if such agreements were not honoured or were threatened by one of the state parties. She urged the international community to remain vigilant to any sign of unwillingness to maintain cooperation and be willing to act to avert any conflict.

Pakistanalsocalledontheinternational community to ensure that states remained willing to resolvewater issues cooperatively and ensure that bilateral and multilateral arrangements were not undermined through unilateral or coercive measures.

She called on the UN to develop, nurture and protect normative frameworks on waterways, at multilateral and bilateral levels.

Ms Lodhi said if the United Nations wished to maintain international peace and security, it must strive to find ways to ensure two things: that member states remained willing to share water resources peacefully and cooperatively; and that member states` willingness to resolve such issues were not constrained by lack of capacity, a press release issued here said.