PM Modi reaches out to flood-hit Pakistanis in hour of grief
As floods wreak havoc in Pakistan, PM Narendra Modi on Monday reached out to the Pakistani people by expressing his “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the victims.
“Saddened to see the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan. We extend our heartfelt condolences to families of the victims, the injured and all those affected by this natural calamity and hope for an early restoration of normalcy,” he tweeted.
Significantly, his message followed reports in Pakistan media that Islamabad will resume trade with India to offset the damage caused by the floods. Islamabad had on Sunday announced that the floods have killed more than 1,000 people apart from causing a loss of $10 billion to the country’s economy.
Pakistan finance minister Miftah Ismail was quoted as saying the government “can consider” importing food items like onions and tomatoes from India. Pakistan had stopped all trade with India after the latter revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir in August, 2019.
There is no proposal yet for providing humanitarian assistance to Pakistan yet and official sources said no request for any help had been received from Islamabad in any case.
The Prime Minister’s message also came before a possible meeting with his Pakistan counterpart Shehbaz Sharif in Samarkand next month, on the sidelines of the SCO summit. This will be the first time that Modi will come face to face with Shehbaz since the latter assumed office. There’s no formal proposal yet by either side for a meeting though.
Modi had earlier reached out to new government in Pakistan by twice congratulating Shehbaz after he took over as the PM. The two sides are yet to see any significant bilateral engagement after the change of government in Pakistan as both continue to insist that the other side first address the core issue – Kashmir for Pakistan and cross-border terrorism for India.
