• Home
• News feed
• Media releases
• Transcripts
• Speeches
• Articles
• Photo gallery
• Videos
• Current Minister
• Department
• AusAID

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI: [Foreign Minister introduces Mr Rudd - inaudible]....this morning who visited the field hospital set up by the Australian Government, where over 200 civilian and military people are helping the people of South Punjab and Muzaffargarh, where hundreds of people are being treated on a daily basis. Ambassador Holbrooke, that is a very well known name and face in Pakistan and once again he has demonstrated his fondness for Pakistan and his friendship for Pakistan. So I am grateful that they are here to see firsthand the challenge, the enormity of the challenge that the people and the Government of Pakistan are facing.

I also want to thank the generous contributions made by the United States of America, by Australia - not just today.

In 2005 during the earthquake, when people in Swat and Malakand were internally displaced, the way they stood by us and helped us is known to you all. And now, once again, they have demonstrated a partnership with Pakistan. And this has been demonstrated by physical help, by providing relief, by providing helicopters, by helping mobilise international public opinion to support Pakistan and the flood affectees of Pakistan. And by putting into motion long-term strategies, like the US Strategic Dialogue, that transform this relationship into an enduring partnership. By sitting together and working out a new, enhanced partnership agreement with Australia, which we will hopefully on my visit to Canberra sign in Australia. So this is the kind of understanding that has been developed. I am very grateful to President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and his team for showing the commitment to help Pakistan.

I would also like to share with members of the media some of the international events that we have planned in the days ahead.

On the 19th of September - just a couple of days away - there is a special session, a ministerial meeting, in New York, which will be co-chaired, the Secretary-General of the UN and myself, we will chair that meeting and foreign ministers of friendly, important countries for Pakistan will be participating in that meeting.

We will assess the flood situation. I will give them an update on the flood situation that we have in Pakistan. We will also give them a presentation. I am taking along the Chairman NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) who will be with me to give them facts and figures about the evolving situation on floods, and we will also review the initial response to the UN Emergency Appeal that was launched on the 11th of August of almost US$460 million. And right now in Islamabad the NDMA people, the UN people and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are consulting with each other to reach an understanding on the second expanded appeal which is to be launched by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Pakistan himself and drew international attention to the enormous challenge Pakistan is facing.

The Government of Pakistan, and I want to share this with you, with the world, has agreed to set up an oversight commission. And this has taken place after a prolonged consultative process with the provincial governments. Now we have agreed on the names, credible names, reputable names, of people who will be in the oversight council, so that there is transparency, there is accountability to every dollar that is being contributed to the flood relief and to the flood victims. We also intend to announce the Terms of Reference of this commission, so that it will be an independent body which will have oversight on the activities and the monies being spent. We also plan to provide international audience with a website. They can reach a website and have access to all the money coming in where the money is being spent, so that there is accountability and transparency in that as well.

I would like to speak to you today, here, in Multan - in Brussels there is meeting of 27 foreign ministers and they are discussing how to help Pakistan by providing greater market access to Pakistani textiles into the European market. That is a tangible, a sustainable way, of helping Pakistan.

I would also like to share with you that we have agreed on a number of international events and one of them is going to be the Friends of Democratic Pakistan Ministerial Meeting in Brussels that will take place on the 14th and 15th of October in which, besides other things, the flood situation and how to deal with the challenges of rehabilitation and reconstruction will also be discussed.

Then we are planning an international donor’s conference before the end of the year, preferably in November in Islamabad, and many international leaders will be participating in that conference. We also are going to expand some invitations on the flood situation and important countries - GCC countries, the Gulf countries and brotherly Muslim countries will also be participating in that.

This natural disaster which has hit Pakistan is the worst ever natural disaster this country has seen since it came into existence. Primarily, it’s the responsibility of the government, the institutions of Pakistan to overcome this challenge. Let us recognise the contribution our international friends are making, and let us appreciate the international assistance that is being provided in the form of blankets and tents and helicopters, and the care and the consideration. Look at the way people in Britain have raised money through public donations. Look at the way people in Germany have donated generously over US$100 million through public donations. That is the kind of commitment that friends of Pakistan have shown to this effort.

I would also like to thanks NGOs, national NGOs, international NGOs, who stood by us and who are supporting us in this activity. I would also like to thank government officials sitting here, your Jawans of the Pakistan army who has contributed by contributing their salaries, a portion of their salaries, a portion of their rations to the flood victims of Pakistan.

I also want to share with you that the Government of Pakistan has initiated, has undertaken a DNA, a Damage Need Assessment survey, that is being carried out hopefully by the middle of October. This will be done and once it is done we will be in a position to give the figure on the extent of damage that the economy of Pakistan has suffered on account of these devastating floods.

Pakistan Government is in consultation with the provincial governments, putting together a national reconstruction and rehabilitation strategy. It is being worked out, the Prime Minister convened a meeting yesterday, I was part of that meeting, and he plans to convene another meeting of the Council of Common Interest, which is a constitutional body, represented at the federal, provincial governments are represented on that body. The national reconstruction and rehabilitation strategy is going to be endorsed, so that there is national consensus and there is national ownership to that effort. We also intend to revisit our budgetary priorities to cap non-development expenditures, to reprioritise our development allocations and to see what we can do to mobilise national resources through a restructuring of our tax system to generate more funds for the affectees and to restart livelihoods and create job opportunities for people in Pakistan.

So Richard, thank you for being here. Kevin, thank you for being here. Over to you.

KEVIN RUDD: Thank you very much Minister and thank you for your kind hospitality today.

It is an honour to stand here as Foreign Minister of Australia together with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who is a long friend of Pakistan and who is a good and long-standing friend of mine and of Australia.

Australia is a friend of Pakistan going back to the earliest days of this country. When any of our friends suffer the sort of natural disaster that this country has suffered in recent times, then the responsibility of friends is to act and to act in a way that helps the people of Pakistan in a practical way.

Australia is now, I believe, the fifth-largest donor globally to Pakistan’s flood appeal. This is because we think it is the right thing to do. This disaster, as the Minister has indicated, is huge by Pakistan’s historical records. It’s huge also in terms of its global dimensions. Some 20 million people affected, some 10 million people rendered homeless, some six million people dependent on emergency supplies of food, some two million of those being children. This, therefore, is a challenge not just for Pakistan; it is a challenge for our common humanity. When any member of the human family suffers a natural disaster of this type, the responsibility of the rest of the human family is to act in brotherhood and sisterhood with them.

Today, I had the privilege of visiting Kot Addu, which the Australians have christened ‘Camp Cockatoo’. It is a place where an Australian military field hospital has been established. What they are doing there is assisting the local medical suppliers and the local medical facilities to cope with the enormous burden which has been placed upon them. There are some 180 Australians committed there, both military aid personnel and civilian aid personnel, and I’d like to thank each and every one of them and their families back home in Australia for the contribution that they have made. Today when I was with them I saw some of the children and the families who are being tended each day. Hundreds coming to the field hospital each day. Cases of malaria; often serious, often life-threatening; cases also of cholera and cases also of a more serious dimension as well.

I was saying to the Minister earlier today, the international community needs to watch very closely what happens here in Pakistan in the weeks and months ahead. We must be very mindful of the possibility of an epidemic because the experience of natural disasters of this type elsewhere in the world is that there is a high risk of epidemic. And, therefore, it is important that the entire international community focus its attention on the good people of Pakistan right now.

I travel from here in Pakistan to Washington tomorrow for discussions with Secretary of State Clinton, and then to New York to attend with Ambassador Holbrooke the meeting which will be held at the United Nations on Sunday for those who are supporting Pakistan in its time of need. My call to the international community is that everyone must step up to the plate. Everyone must do more to help our friends here in Pakistan, and the families I have been with today in the Punjab.

Australia has already contributed some A$35 million to this cause. Today, Minister, I’d like to announce that Australia will contribute a further A$40 million, which will bring our combined contribution to the flood relief appeal here for Pakistan to some A$75 million.

This will be delivered through various United Nations’ agencies, the World Health Organisation, the World Food Programme and others, but also Australian NGOs, including World Vision Australia, Care Australia, Oxfam Australia and Save the Children. It’s an important contribution for us. It is an important contribution for the people of Pakistan.

I’d conclude with this, Minister, by simply saying again that when our friends and our fellow democracies around the world experience tragedy of this order of magnitude, it is the responsibility of all of us to act. I would thank also the Government of the United States for its generosity and what it has done, and the generosity provided by other peoples and nations as well. But I say again, the challenge is ongoing, and we should be watching very closely the prospects and the dangers which lie ahead in the weeks and months which lie critically before us.

Thank you Minister.

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI: Before I give the floor to Ambassador Holbrooke, let me thank you again Foreign Minister for this additional of A$40 million by Australia. This will really be a very useful contribution.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Thank you Mr Minister and thank you Kevin.

It is a pleasure to share the podium with you on your second day as Foreign Minister of Australia, and it is especially an honour to be with my friend, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, for, I think, the 17th trip I’ve made to Pakistan, probably the 50th time we’ve met in the last year and a half, but the first time we’ve met here in Multan. And the very first time I met you, you said you wanted to bring me to Multan and to visit some of the great shrines here.

Neither of us could dream that it could have been under these circumstances. But it is, and we have to face the fact that Pakistan is faced with a challenge of historic dimensions, and the world is joining and helping. The initial international response was a little slow, as you all know, because the international community did not understand at first the dimensions of the problem. Foreign Minister Qureshi immediately called us and talked to us. Secretary Clinton and I immediately issued appeals. She taped messages, we talked to the American media, and we started to ring the alarm bells. Now the world realises that this is just not another flood. It is something of historic and epic proportions. And we are here to learn more about how we can help your country in the next phase as the waters recede, and how we can get more assistance out to people in the current phase, the relief effort.

Yesterday we visited Thatta, which is enormously hard hit and saw the most enormous devastation. Today we are here in Multan where parts of the area are beginning to have the recovery phase, and beyond that lies the reconstruction phase. The bill for all of this will be enormous. The United States, in keeping with its traditions and its spirit of support for international disasters, is leading the way and our informal motto is that we hope we will be first and with the most assistance. But no one country can do it alone, and it is particularly wonderful to share the podium with Foreign Minister Rudd when he announces on behalf of the Government of Australia an enormous contribution in terms of what it means for Australia, which is after all a country much smaller than the United States. We also intend to increase our contributions as time goes on, and to work with the international community to increase them steadily. The need is so immense that no one country, and the international community itself will not be able to do it all. The current UN appeal, US$459 million is not going to be enough. And we will be discussing in New York what we can do to increase it. The Foreign Minister has talked about the Brussels meeting on October 14th and 15th, which he and I will both attend. And at that meeting, I believe the Needs Assessment that you referred to will be a centrepiece in discussions. And then by the time we come back to Islamabad in mid-November at the invitation of the Government of Pakistan, I hope we will be able to flesh out the reconstruction needs of Pakistan.

I want to emphasise that we do this not because of strategic concerns or issues.

It is not because of your neighbours.

It is not because of the war in Afghanistan.

It is not a strategic or a political decision.

It is a humanitarian decision linking the people of our country with the people of Pakistan. Everybody is aware of the difficult strategic situation in this part of the world. But we do this because it is the right thing to do. We do it because we care about the Pakistani people. We hope that the people of Pakistan know that the world is coming to their aid.

Now when we were in the field, our field trips, people of course are in very difficult circumstances and they don’t have enough food and shelter at this point, and they are living in very difficult conditions. The thing that struck me most was the people outside the camps. People huddled along the dykes, not wanting to be separated from their land even though their land was underwater. People all along the road; I’ve seen many refugee camps in the last 40 years, but I have not seen people along the road in such numbers and in such desperate situations, and we need to help them. And we understand that they are not all getting assistance, and we hear the complaints and the Government of Pakistan is responding to them. I also visited a Saudi Arabian refugee facility yesterday, and I was very impressed with that. And I saw the Chinese efforts for the first time, but I particularly note those because I previously questioned what China had done and I was very gratified to see that they were in Thatta in a very important way as well; and the Turks, and the United Arab Emirates and many other countries. So I hope the people of Pakistan know that the rest of the world is aware of and responding to what you’re hearing.

With that, Foreign Minister, I think that is all I need to say for now.

I’ll be seeing you again in Islamabad. I look forward to talks with President Zardari, Prime Minister Gillani, Finance Minister Shaikh and General Nadeem, General Kayani and his colleagues at GHQ, and I am just honoured to be here, but especially by the fact that you came down here today not only to discuss the situation, we could have done that in Islamabad, but to show Kevin and me this extraordinarily beautiful Shrine, this world historic monument, which you and your family have created over so many generations, so thank you very much.

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI [in Urdu - Embassy translation]: I would like to say something before I open the floor for Q& A that the Government of Pakistan and its Foreign Office have made the international community realise the enormous magnitude of the calamity and now you can see that from all over the world, people are coming to Pakistan’s help and showing their solidarity with Pakistan.

The UN has passed a unanimous resolution in favour of Pakistan. The 27 EU members in a unanimous way and in one voice are standing with Pakistan in this hour of need.

Many people here have said that we do not see the same passion and realisation in the response of the international community that we saw in the 2005 earthquake response. So let me say that here today in front of this audience that, yes, the response initially may have been slow, but then when we made the international community realise the enormous devastation the floods have caused, they came in and are helping in a big way.

I take this opportunity to say how grateful my government is for all the contributions done by people who never come into the limelight; my Ambassadors, Council Generals in different parts of the world did a lot in many ways to help us in this relief effort. And average Pakistanis who are abroad, whose donation may have been 10 dollars or 10 pounds, I would like to salute them and would like to say that they are the unknown heroes of Pakistan, who are now helping their own nation and their country.

Now the questions.

AMJAID BUKHARI (Pakistan Daily Express): My name is Amjaid Bukhari. I am correspondent for Daily Express. My question is to Mr Holbrooke.

Sir, your Government is working here for flood rescue and relief work, we are grateful for that, but on the other hand the drone attacks are in full swing.

In last 13 days, 13 attacks have been executed and this is managing more than 21 people killed in last two days. So, this situation is also damaging the impression and image of the United States.

Is there any alternative in the United States Government for these drone attacks, and if there is, why is the alternative not being used by the United States Government in North Waziristan?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: You know, I am not here for any other purpose except that the Secretary of State and the President sent me here to find out how the United States can help Pakistan in its moment of need.

And while I understand that as a journalist you need to ask a question like that, I am not going to distract from the purpose of our trip here. I’ll discuss those issues anytime you want, but not today, except for one thing. I want to be very clear; there are people in the western part of this country who seek to destroy this country, its neighbours, and attack the United States and its allies. And I would remind you that one of the worst attacks took place in Bali, Indonesia, and the target was Australian tourists. So all the countries represented on the podium today have been threatened by these things, and it is a mutual problem for all of us, and we have to act together to bring the kind of moderation and tolerance and vision that we saw in that shrine today with the Foreign Minister Qureshi, back to the area. And that is, we also have to protect everything that matters in terms of our securities. So that is really all I want to say on that subject. We’re here to help the people of Pakistan, and I believe that that is very much inherent in our trip today.

JOURNALIST: Sir, my name is [inaudible]. I am from Reuters news agency.

Sir, Pakistan fully supports America in the war against terrorism, and you see and you visit the Pakistan affected areas. How will America help the flood victims?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: How can America help the flood victims?

As the Foreign Minister said, and as I said, we have already donated around US$300 million to Pakistan. That will not be the end to our contributions.

We have some 30 American helicopters flying in this country, delivering food, rescuing people in the early stages, and supporting the Pakistani Government.

We, much of the international aid, the World Food Programme, the UN High Commission on Refugees, the UNICEF, these are programs in which the largest donor is the United States. So whenever you see the UN, you can assume that approximately one-quarter to one-third of what the UN is doing is paid for by the American taxpayers. And that none of that counts; not the helicopters, the UN support; none of that is in the figure of (US$)300 million. So we are doing a great deal.

However, I heard yesterday in Thatta that people there don’t know this, because our flag isn’t flying everywhere like some of the other countries; Saudi Arabia, China and so on, and I regret that. So much of our work goes through the NGOs and the international community that perhaps people in the international community aren’t fully aware. But our goal here is not to advertise ourselves, but to help the people of Pakistan and I hope they will recognise that.

So, in addition, this is all part of our overall relationship with Pakistan. We have had more high level attention to Pakistan, support of Pakistan, than any other country in the world since Barack Obama took office. And of course President Obama himself has deep personal connections to this country. His mother lived in the Karachi area, he had close friends and roommates from Pakistan when he was in college, as did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose roommate was also from Pakistan, so the President and Secretary of State care deeply about this country and have deep knowledge it.

And this commitment is manifested in many ways, not just my frequent trips here, but the fact that in one year, in six months, we have had three meetings at the highest level forum between our two countries, the Strategic Dialogue, and I pay tribute to Foreign Minister Qureshi for his leadership in this area. Previous to the Obama Administration, this was all done at a lower level. Secretary of State Clinton took it over at the suggestion of Foreign Minister Qureshi, and we met in Washington in March. We met in Islamabad in July and, as the Foreign Minister said, we will meet in Washington again in October. No other country in the world has had more than one dialogue in the last year. None. We will have had three, and these range across various areas, from water, energy, to women empowerment, to education to health. We announced very large programs in energy and in education and water before the floods. When the floods hit, as mentioned in some newspaper articles this morning, when the floods hit, we talked to the Foreign Minister and we moved some of the Kerry-Lugar money into the emergency relief with the permission of the Congress. And so we are moving some money into the most urgent things, and that may, that will require us to consider how we proceed after we get through the emergency.

But let there be no question about it. US$7.5 billion of American assistance in the civilian field for Pakistan passed under this Administration, compared to a fraction of that, a small fraction, in the previous years.

JOURNALIST: My question is for Mr Holbrooke and for Mr Rudd. I am [inaudible] BBC service....

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Could you hold the microphone closer?

JOURNALIST: Okay. Thank you.

This area of Southern Punjab has been talked about as being nursery for the recruitment of banned organisations, and that may also be because of the poverty in this area. These floods are going to add to the devastation and poverty in this area.

Do you think it can give rise to more extremism and is it a concern for you after the floods if the people are not helped on time and properly?

Or is there any talk in the US about creating opportunity zones in these affected areas just like tribal areas, ah, on long-term basis?

And Mr Rudd my question for you is why not your A$40 million directly through the Government? Why through UN agencies?

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI: I’ll go first okay.

See, there are different ways of helping. One way of helping is through the UN system. And you people in the media were very, very aware of this. You wanted transparency, you wanted money well spent, and we thought that this initial stage that if money is channelled through credible international institutions it will enhance Pakistan’s credibility. Right? And it has. People have seen for themselves the enormity of the challenge and they’ve come out and they have helped. But they are not going to confine themselves to the UN system. There are bilateral contributions, there are direct contributions. This additional you know, Rs$4.6 billion that come to about US$57.222 million that the missions abroad have contributed, they have come directly to the, primarily to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, that have come directly to the Government of Pakistan.

Now, in the next phase, that is a phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction, we are talking to friends and friendly countries, many Muslim countries, looking at different ways of helping Pakistan. It can be bilaterally, it can be through international organisations, through the federal and through the coordination of the provincial government.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I would just add that it is a very interesting question you ask.

And the simple question is some countries, we want Pakistan to get the most assistance possible, but each country has its own system.

Some countries will only contribute through international organisations. And some countries won’t contribute at all to international organisations.

India made an important offer to Pakistan which the Foreign Minister talked to his Indian counterpart about and they increased it by a great amount, but it had to go through the international system. That was, that was the correct approach. China gives Pakistan direct aid. For our country it’s a mixture of the two. And each country has to decide, so this was just a device to maximise contributions.

On your first question, I am not sure whether I understood it correctly. You want to know whether the floods will affect the issue of the extremists? Did I understand it correctly?

JOURNALIST: Yes.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: You know, I’ve been asked that ever since the floods began, and I’ll give you the same answer I give every time; we are focussed on helping the people of Pakistan now.

It is not a political or a strategic issue.

I read that in the newspapers, but I haven’t seen the evidence of it.

The Foreign Minister may wish to add his own comments, but we are here to help the people of Pakistan in the relief effort and we’ll deal with the issue of the extremists in the context of the war in the country next door, Afghanistan, as we’ve done before because I’m not going to link the two because, and I stress again, everything we are doing in regard to the floods, we are doing without reference to the other issue.

Your people need help, and we wish to help the people of Pakistan.

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI: There are many ways of dealing with the issue of extremism and terrorism.

One way of reversing extremism and defeating terrorism is through poverty alleviation, through education, and you would see that in our dialogue with the United States, with United Kingdom, with Australia, with other friends in the European Unions, we are focussing on poverty alleviation, we are focussing on targeted help to the really needy people that are beneath the poverty line. And as a Government, education is our priority. And we have announced a new education policy in which we intend to enhance our education, and these are some of the ways of dealing with terrorism and extremism.

KEVIN RUDD: Let me just quickly add in response to your question.

Firstly bilaterally, Australia has already a significant bilateral development assistance program with Pakistan, one which our Government has increased significantly in recent years.

I look at my High Commissioner, I think it is in the vicinity over several years of several hundred million dollars. First point.

Second is when natural disasters hit, the convention in Australia has been since time and memorial for all countries anywhere, is that we use the multilateral agencies, through the United Nations, as well as international non-government organisations and Australia non-government organisations. They have an in-built expertise about how to deal with an emerging disaster there and then, and the position we have taken in relation to Pakistan is no different to that which we’ve taken to any other country, who has experienced a natural disaster as well.

JOURNALIST: My name is [inaudible] I would like to say, Mr Holbrooke, why is United States silent about human rights violations in occupied Kashmir? Is it more terrorism to kill [inaudible]? What do you say?

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I am not here to talk about other parts of the world, so I’ll just let that be dealt by people working on that problem.

JOURNALIST: I’d like to ask a question, Ambassador Holbrooke.

Obviously, the US contribution to the relief effort has contributed a lot of goodwill among the Pakistani Government and the Pakistanis who have been helped here. But one of the things that has clouded the waters a bit, both in Pakistan and throughout the Muslim world recently, has been the controversy over the so-called ‘Ground Zero mosque’ in New York and was wondering if you had any comments about that controversy and if, you know, how it is being sold.

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Well I, of course I am a New Yorker myself and I’ve followed this very carefully as a private citizen, not on behalf of the Government. And I would just start out by saying I am glad you said ‘so-called’ mosque because, in fact, it is an Islamic centre. And, in fact, I thought about it a great deal today.

I hadn’t thought about it prior to this afternoon, but when Foreign Minister Qureshi took Kevin Rudd and me through the great shrine today, and recounted to us the history of his family, and the founding member of his family who created that great mosque, and whose tomb we paid tribute, and he told us of the traditions that his family represented, it was very moving and it was very relevant to me.

He, Minister Qureshi, had had the same conversation with Secretary Clinton the first time they met on March 31st, actually, excuse me, the second time you met but the first time was in the trilateral group in Washington, but the second time they met in the Hague at the Afghanistan Conference on March 31st last year, and in our private session I remember vividly, as does Hillary, that Shah Mehmood Qureshi told us about his family and about the shrine and about his traditions of Sufiism. It happens that the leader of the Islamic centre in New York is also Sufi. And the traditions that we heard about today are living repudiation of the kind of extremism that we hear about from some people in the United States today.

Ah, now, we are a country that believes in democracy and freedom of speech, and we don’t question the right of individuals to say what they have to say. But, let us be clear to everyone here in Pakistan, that we admire more than I can say the traditions of tolerance, moderation and diversity, which is represented by what we saw today. And it is clear from what we saw today, it is clear that that represents the true path of the people of the Islamic faith, and we are, I am very moved by what I saw today, and I kept thinking about the controversy that had sprung up, in my view completely off the subject of what America is about. That is not what our nation is about, and there is no better place to say it. I haven’t spoken about it publicly before because no one asked me, but you asked, and we’re here in Multan, I can’t think of a better place to speak from the heart personally as an American about it because of what you told us today, and thank you for that Mr Minister.

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI (in Urdu - Embassy translation): I would like to say on the question regarding Kashmir that the Government of Pakistan is worried about the way unarmed citizens are being martyred there, and this is now being done on a regular basis on which we are very much concerned. And the people of Pakistan are also concerned about this situation and we believe that the situation is changing rapidly and there is a dire need to change the situation.

We and the President of Pakistan in his press conference yesterday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that he forcefully condemned these brutal killings and the torture which is being meted to the people there.

The President also showed his concern about the unlawful arrests of innocent people and condemned such acts. We have told the Government of India that eventually they have to listen to the Kashmiri people. You cannot quell this movement. History is witness to this fact that you cannot suppress this movement. And this is not only said by us, but today Indian academics and different voices in the Indian Parliament are saying that this is peaceful political movement where women, children, unarmed people are facing the forces of brutalities. We have to find a political solution to these issues. And the Indian Army chief has also said that there is no military solution to this problem, only a political solution is a viable solution. And for that we have to respect the feelings of the people of Kashmir.

Pakistan is also a party to this conflict. In this dispute there are two more parties - India and the people of Kashmir and we have to listen to them as well, and Pakistan has always said that dialogue is the only way forward, with peaceful ways we have to find its solution. And if we do not find a peaceful solution to this conflict then what is happening today will get more momentum and it will be impossible to suppress that with military might.

So Pakistan is showing solidarity with the innocent people of Kashmir. We have stood by them in the past and in the future. By the grace of God, we will stand by them. Our diplomatic, moral and political support for them was there in the past, it is present now, and we will continue to support them in the future.

As far as the Pakistan People’s Party point of view is concerned on this issue, the PPP has a historic point: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, when he was Foreign Minister, his thinking was very clear. When he was Prime Minister, his thinking was clear as well. We wish for peace, friendship, but we can never let go our right and our historic viewpoint on Kashmir.

[In English] Thank you.

JOURNALIST: I have a question for Mr Rudd.....

FOREIGN MINISTER QURESHI: One question, last question....

KEVIN RUDD: I have to get back to Dubai in about three minutes, so it’ll be a short question.

JOURNALIST: Quick question: Mr Kevin Rudd you know Kashmir is a burning issue, and you know in these days Indian forces killed about 30 people - unarmed people - protesters. Would you like to say something, you know, why the world is silent in these days?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, I will echo very much the excellent comments made before by Ambassador Holbrooke. I think on these questions, we are focussing on other matters today. I’d rather not to have that affected by any other matters.

The Government of Australia condemns any act of violence, anywhere, at any time.

END

Media enquiries

• Minister's office: (02) 6277 7500
• DFAT Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555