Pakistan rejects India's aid offer
Pakistan on Thursday (August 19) formally rejected Indian aid for thosoe effected by the recent floods. Declining India's offer for aid to the flood effected victims, Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said, "We appreciate India's gesture, but can't take aid now."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this afternoon made a call to his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani and condoled the deaths caused by floods in Pakistan. In his conversation with Gilani, the Prime Minister also offered India's aid to those people effected by the floods in Pakistan.
The Obama administration earlier urged Pakistan to accept India's aid offer even as hardline elements in the flood-ravaged country have begun a vicious campaign to blame India, the United States, and Afghanistan for the calamity, a charge Washington has simply dismissed.
Amid mounting international attention and concern for Pakistan's future in the face of the tragedy, US officials on Wednesday called on Islamabad to abjure politics and accept India's help, including an initial $ 5 million offer it has sat on saying it is under consideration, even as it is begging for international aid.
"I think the priority is to use offers of assistance to help the Pakistani people, so we would encourage Government of Pakistan to accept that (Indian) offer," Frank Ruggiero, Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday. Separately, state department spokesman P J Crowley said, "In terms of responding to a disaster, politics should play no role. You have a country (India) that's willing to help (Pakistan), and...we expect that Pakistan will accept."
Their remarks came amid a rash of reports in the Pakistani media blaming India, principally, for the massive floods, purportedly because New Delhi had deliberately diverted waters from dams in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and from the ones it "controlled in Afghanistan". Some reports also charged that US was manipulating weather patterns over Pakistan. US officials dismissed the idea with incredulity.
"So it was the United States and India that conspired to have the monsoons come to Pakistan? I don't find that credible," Crowley said in response to a question about such reports in sections of the Pakistani media considered close to hard-line elements in its intelligence agencies and jihadists.
The inflammatory reports in a country that's been dubbed "Paranoidistan" surfaced even as Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in an interview to ABC, endorsed a purported ISI report last week that home-grown extremism and not India constituted a primary security threat to the country.
The new line, which if genuine would reverse 63 years of regarding India as the primary threat, is ostensibly aimed at extracting more aid from the US and the international community, which have repeatedly advised Islamabad to give up its India fixation, and have been reluctant to open their purse strings because of, among other things, Pakistan's hardline policies towards India.
Pakistan's recalibration, amid unabated floods and fears of extremists getting ahead of the government in providing relief, is already starting to show results. The US has increased its aid to nearly $100 million, the World Bank has sanctioned a loan of $ 900 million, and various western and Gulf/Arab countries have also bumped up their initial modest contribution to help out Pakistan from being completely washed up.
On Thursday (Friday IST), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead the move to galvanize world attention and ramped up aid by delivering remarks at a plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the humanitarian situation resulting from the floods in Pakistan. She is expected to announce a further increase in US commitment.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Pakistan-rejects-Indias-aid-offer/articleshow/4351975.cms
Not our fault LOL
Pakistan on Thursday (August 19) formally rejected Indian aid for thosoe effected by the recent floods. Declining India's offer for aid to the flood effected victims, Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said, "We appreciate India's gesture, but can't take aid now."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier this afternoon made a call to his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani and condoled the deaths caused by floods in Pakistan. In his conversation with Gilani, the Prime Minister also offered India's aid to those people effected by the floods in Pakistan.
The Obama administration earlier urged Pakistan to accept India's aid offer even as hardline elements in the flood-ravaged country have begun a vicious campaign to blame India, the United States, and Afghanistan for the calamity, a charge Washington has simply dismissed.
Amid mounting international attention and concern for Pakistan's future in the face of the tragedy, US officials on Wednesday called on Islamabad to abjure politics and accept India's help, including an initial $ 5 million offer it has sat on saying it is under consideration, even as it is begging for international aid.
"I think the priority is to use offers of assistance to help the Pakistani people, so we would encourage Government of Pakistan to accept that (Indian) offer," Frank Ruggiero, Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday. Separately, state department spokesman P J Crowley said, "In terms of responding to a disaster, politics should play no role. You have a country (India) that's willing to help (Pakistan), and...we expect that Pakistan will accept."
Their remarks came amid a rash of reports in the Pakistani media blaming India, principally, for the massive floods, purportedly because New Delhi had deliberately diverted waters from dams in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and from the ones it "controlled in Afghanistan". Some reports also charged that US was manipulating weather patterns over Pakistan. US officials dismissed the idea with incredulity.
"So it was the United States and India that conspired to have the monsoons come to Pakistan? I don't find that credible," Crowley said in response to a question about such reports in sections of the Pakistani media considered close to hard-line elements in its intelligence agencies and jihadists.
The inflammatory reports in a country that's been dubbed "Paranoidistan" surfaced even as Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in an interview to ABC, endorsed a purported ISI report last week that home-grown extremism and not India constituted a primary security threat to the country.
The new line, which if genuine would reverse 63 years of regarding India as the primary threat, is ostensibly aimed at extracting more aid from the US and the international community, which have repeatedly advised Islamabad to give up its India fixation, and have been reluctant to open their purse strings because of, among other things, Pakistan's hardline policies towards India.
Pakistan's recalibration, amid unabated floods and fears of extremists getting ahead of the government in providing relief, is already starting to show results. The US has increased its aid to nearly $100 million, the World Bank has sanctioned a loan of $ 900 million, and various western and Gulf/Arab countries have also bumped up their initial modest contribution to help out Pakistan from being completely washed up.
On Thursday (Friday IST), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead the move to galvanize world attention and ramped up aid by delivering remarks at a plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the humanitarian situation resulting from the floods in Pakistan. She is expected to announce a further increase in US commitment.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Pakistan-rejects-Indias-aid-offer/articleshow/4351975.cms
Not our fault LOL
