U.S., U.K. Commit to Continued Aid for Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2010 — Cit­ing the “enor­mous scale of the dev­as­ta­tion” caused by flood­ing in Pak­istan, Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Deputy British Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas P. Clegg today affirmed their nations’ com­mit­ment to help­ing the coun­try recov­er.

In a joint state­ment issued after their meet­ing, said they rec­og­nize Pakistan’s con­tin­u­ing human­i­tar­i­an and recov­ery needs. 

The state­ment not­ed that the Unit­ed King­dom has con­tributed about $209 mil­lion to the effort, and the Unik­t­ed States has con­tributed about $345 million. 

“We wel­come the inter­na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions that have been made so far, … and we rec­og­nize also the gen­eros­i­ty of indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens in these and oth­er coun­tries,” the state­ment said. “How­ev­er, there is more to be done.” They encour­aged the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to respond “ful­ly, rapid­ly and with effec­tive coor­di­na­tion and lead­er­ship,” and encour­aged part­ners to meet in full pledges made at the 2009 Tokyo donors meet­ing in addi­tion to new pledges relat­ed to the floods. 

“The U.S. and the U.K. affirm their com­mit­ment to sus­tained long-term post-flood recon­struc­tion in Pak­istan, beyond the imme­di­ate human­i­tar­i­an needs,” the state­ment con­tin­ued. “We encour­age oth­er mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to remain engaged as well. Sta­bil­i­ty in Pak­istan, under­pinned by eco­nom­ic and demo­c­ra­t­ic devel­op­ment, is vital for the sta­bil­i­ty of the region and for secu­ri­ty in the wider world.” 

Pledg­ing “unshake­able sup­port for the peo­ple of Pak­istan” in the wake of this nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, the two lead­ers also reaf­firmed their nations’ com­mit­ment to enhanc­ing their strate­gic part­ner­ships with Pak­istan, “on the basis of shared inter­ests and mutu­al respect.” 

“We rec­og­nize also the role that the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has in help­ing Pak­istan to address a range of chal­lenges across devel­op­ment, secu­ri­ty, and gov­er­nance,” they added. “We look to the Friends of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pak­istan Min­is­te­r­i­al meet­ing in Octo­ber to mobi­lize fur­ther polit­i­cal sup­port on these agendas.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter