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Kerry welcomes humanitarian aid package to Pak
Influential US Senator John Kerry has welcomed the humanitarian aid package of $100 million to Pakistan as announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Influential US Senator John Kerry has welcomed the humanitarian aid package of $100 million to Pakistan as announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The humanitarian aid package is for the nearly two million refugees displaced from Swat Valley where the Pakistani army has launched a military action against the Taliban terrorists.
"The scale of the tragedy demands immediate assistance: Some two million civilians have been driven from their homes due to fight initiated by the Taliban," said Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"I applaud the Administration's pledge of more than $100 million in humanitarian aid for Pakistanis displaced by the violence in Swat valley," he said.
Kerry said the present emergency carries echoes of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake after which the US provided nearly one billion dollars in relief aid.
Earlier this month Kerry along with Senator Richard Lugar, Ranking Member of the Committee, had introduced legislation in the Senate for tripling the non-military aid to Pakistan to $7.5 billion in the next five years.
