ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 7 November 2005 — Pakistan and India are set to rewrite history today with yet another confidence-building measure that could provide an impetus to the warming relations.
Islamabad and New Delhi both worked together to complete preparations to open the border crossing points across the Line of Control (LOC) and both said yesterday preparations were complete for opening border crossing points.
But India said it was ready to open only one of the five points to help survivors of last month’s quake.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed, who arrived here yesterday leading a high-level delegation, said the Kingdom would extend all possible help and assistance to Pakistan.
“I have brought here a message from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan to the people of Pakistan...that the Kingdom will stand by Pakistan all the way at this moment of pain and misery,” he told reporters.
Addressing a joint press conference with Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the Saudi minister expressed his deep sorrow over the great human and material losses suffered by Pakistan as a result of the devastating earthquake.
Aziz thanked the Saudi leadership and people for their continuous support and their generous aid for the quake victims. Prince Ahmed and Aziz exchanged views on the current relief and rehabilitation operations and related matters.
The Saudi delegation, which includes the ministers of health and social affairs and members of the Shoura Council, will meet Pakistani officials and inspect relief facilities set up by Saudi agencies.
King Abdullah, who dispatched the delegation, has already ordered an emergency aid of SR500 million for Pakistan’s quake victims.
In a statement before leaving for Islamabad, Prince Ahmed commended the king for launching a nationwide fund-raising campaign for the quake survivors and sending a high-level delegation to express the Kingdom’s solidarity with the people of Pakistan at these difficult times.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and India said yesterday work to clear the way to other border crossing points, including the removal of land mines, was continuing. While Chakan-da-Bagh, the crossing point in Poonch, will be made operational today, it will take around a week for the crossing points at Kaman in Uri and Tithwal in Tangdhar to become operational.
“People and divided families can start using the points as soon as their names are approved by both sides during the process of identification on India and Pakistan sides,” Brig. Gen. Staff (16 corps) A.K. Bakshi told a news agency in Poonch.
Once these crossing points became operational, they will be used for sending relief material for quake-affected people. People can start using these points to cross the Line of Control (LOC), after both the sides approve their names, Bakshi said. The Indian Army said a relief camp at Chakan da Bagh, was ready to host 100 people and a helipad had been restored to evacuate any emergency patients arriving from the Pakistani side.
The Pakistani side of Chakan da Bagh is accessible by road and it is unlikely any emergency patients there are still awaiting help. To the north, while the Pakistani military might be ready to open the border at Chakothi, the road linking the town to the rest of Pakistan is still blocked by landslides. So any aid sent in from the Indian side would still have to be moved by helicopter to communities outside the immediate area.
“We’re all set,” said Pakistani army officer Lt. Col. Mohammad Chiragh Haider, speaking at a crossing with India near the town of Chakothi in Pakistani Kashmir, where a bridge over a stream used to link the two sides.
The bridge, known as the Friendship Bridge since India and Pakistan launched a bus service between their parts of divided Kashmir this year, was destroyed in the Oct. 8 earthquake but Pakistani soldiers have built a small foot bridge below it.
Also, Indian Border Security Force (BSF) reviewed yesterday the proposed Indo-Pak rail link of 2.45 km between Munabao and Khokhrapar, Pakistan, at a high-level meeting in Rajasthan’s Barmer district, official sources said in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
