Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. Freddie Everett—Public Domain
The U.S. government on Monday announced it will provide $10 million in food security assistance to Pakistan to help farmers recover from the devastation caused by this year’s floods, which have destroyed over four million acres of crops in the country.
Addressing a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this would supplement the more than $56 million in immediate humanitarian assistance that had already been provided. “We’ve been able to send about 17 planes full of supplies like food and materials to build shelters, tents, tarps,” he said, adding that the food security assistance would provide urgent supplies to help farmers recover from losses to farmland, including through seeds, fertilizer, and assistance repairing critical irrigation infrastructure.
Stressing this was a “tremendously difficult moment” for Pakistan, he noted that a third of the country remains underwater, with 33 million affected. “That has an immediate impact, but unless we’re able together to deal with the challenges, will have a long-term impact as well. So we have a sense of urgency, but we also have a sense of determination,” he said, adding the U.S. was “here for Pakistan” to help it overcome the damages caused by floods and rebuild.
“We will continue to stand by Pakistan, to stand by its people, today and in the days to come, because that’s what we’ve done for each other in both directions through much of our shared history,” he said, appreciating the two countries’ cultural exchange “through the poetry of Allama Iqbal, to the songs of the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and a recent Grammy Award winner, Arooj Aftab.”
“We are profoundly, profoundly better off for the immeasurable contributions of Pakistani Americans as civic leaders in their communities, as U.S. soldiers on the battlefield, and across literally every part of our society,” he said, stressing the community excelled in every walk of professional life from medicine to science to engineering to business to government.
Noting that Islamabad and Washington were continuing to work closely on counterterrorism issues, he acknowledged “differences” over Afghanistan but stressed that they had a common objective: a more stable, more peaceful, and free future for all of Afghanistan and for those across the broader region. He said his discussions with Bhutto-Zardari had included the importance of managing a responsible relationship with India. “I also urged our colleagues to engage China on some of the important issues of debt relief and restructure so that Pakistan can more quickly recover from the floods,” he said, adding commitments as democracies to upholding core values like respect for freedom of religion, belief, freedom of expression were also discussed.
On economic ties, Blinken urged Pakistan to empower women and girls to ensure they could participate fully in the economy. “That’s the way not only to help them reach their full potential but to help the economy in the country reach its,” he said, as he also praised exchange programs that he described as the future of the Pak-U.S. relationship.
“This is a resilient relationship,” he emphasized. “It’s capable of overcoming challenges that we’ve had to confront,” he added.
In his turn at the mic, the foreign minister said diplomacy had returned between the State Department and the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan. However, he stressed, his current visit had come when ground realities in his country had “fundamentally” changed.
“We have experienced a climate catastrophe of biblical, apocalyptic proportions,” he said, noting there was still a hundred-kilometer-lake “in the middle of my country” that was slowly draining. “As a result, a third of my country is under water, more than the land mass of the United Kingdom; 33 million people—more than the population of Australia, more than the population of New Zealand, more than the population of New York State, or 95 percent of the population of Canada,” he said, adding 600,000 pregnant women were waiting to give birth in the open. “Of the 33 million people affected, 16 million are children. Of the 1,600 deaths that we’ve had so far, a third of them have been children,” he added.
Stressing that Pakistan was facing the brunt of climate change-induced devastation despite contributing just 0.8 percent to the global carbon output, he said this was why Islamabad needed support to get its people climate justice. “The opportunity in this crisis in Pakistan is that we must build back better, greener, more climate-resilient,” he said, stressing that this could be achieved if the U.S. and Pakistan worked together.
“I am convinced that we can build back. We will build a more climate-resilient Pakistan,” he said, adding this would entail green jobs and opportunities for both people in the country and those across the world that wished to invest. “We’re incredibly grateful to the U.S. government for their initial $1 million, then $33 million, then $55 million and today, after your announcement of the $10 million, we have reached the $60 million mark,” he said, thanking the U.S. administration for the help it had provided already.
“We’ve proved throughout history that when we work together, we achieve great things,” he said. “I believe our relationship that’s in the past is the legacy of the leadership of the past, and now it is a test for us that how we take this relationship forward. Here’s to another 75 years of Pakistan-U.S. relationships,” he added.