India responds to Pak offer for Saarc Covid-19 fund

Pakistan had on Thursday made a contribution to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s (Saarc) Covid-19 Emergency Fund on the condition that the facility be administered by the Saarc secretariat.

Updated on: Apr 10, 2020, 11:32:29 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Rezaul H Laskar

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India on Friday responded to Pakistan’s conditional decision to pledge $3 million to the Saarc Covid-19 Emergency Fund by saying each member of the grouping is free to decide the manner and implementation of its commitment.

Doctors and other medical staff seen in PPE after a group of people suspected of COVID-19 infection were brought in LNJP hospital (Raj K Raj/ Hindustan Times)

Pakistan had on Thursday made a contribution to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s (Saarc) Covid-19 Emergency Fund on the condition that the facility be administered by the Saarc secretariat.

It was the last of Saarc’s eight members to contribute to the fund, which was created with an initial corpus of $10 million from India following a video conference of leaders of the grouping on March 15. Pakistan also proposed that the contribution be used in accordance with the Saarc Charter.

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Responding to Pakistan’s position, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said: “It is for each Saarc member state to decide on the timing, manner and implementation of their Saarc Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund commitments.”

He added, “Where India is concerned, the commitment made by the prime minister is today in an advanced stage of implementation. Assistance in material and services has been extended to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.”

The other members of Saarc have also “made early commitments to the Fund” and the “degree of seriousness of each nation can be gauged by their behaviour”, Srivastava said.

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According to New Delhi, India’s engagements with Saarc members on Covid-19 related matters are stand-alone events, whereas Pakistan has sought to bring all issues under the Saarc secretariat in a bid to block Indian initiatives.

On Wednesday, Pakistan skipped a video conference of senior trade officials of the Saarc, saying it chose not to participate since the Saarc secretariat wasn’t involved in organising it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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