Maleeha calls for market access to help Pakistan's quake Challenges
By Raza Mumtaz - Pakistan Times Foreign Correspondent

LONDON (UK): Pakistan's envoy to Britain, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi has urged the Western nations to provide Pakistan market access as a way of helping the country cope with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

Speaking on several television channels including one on Sunday morning shows, she said that Pakistan will need longer term international support to meet the challenge at hand.

Just as Tsunami affected countries were given trade concessions as a form of economic help, the Pakistan too merits a similar response. This would be an effective and sustainable way of enabling Pakistan to undertake gigantic task of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Multiple Challenges

Dr. Lodhi said Pakistan faced multiple challenges -- both short and long term in nature. In the near term, providing necessary relief supplies to survivors is the overwhelming priority.

To this effect, she cited bad weather as a constraining factor. She said there were nevertheless two enabling factors, namely more helicopters to deploy for relief and medical evacuation and the fact that most of the road links had been restored.

The Pakistan envoy said that torrential rains had hampered relief work and only underscored the hazardous nature of relief and rescue missions.

Relief workers, she explained had managed to reach more and more remote areas and help was being provided in very difficult circumstances.

Newspaper Review

Dr. Maleeha Lodhi told BBC 4's 'Newspaper Review' programme early Sunday morning that the scale of the damage and therefore the challenge was unprecedented. But the most hopeful development was the unparalled, solidarity and unity shown by the people to meet the challenge.

She praised the efforts of voluntary workers who had joined forces with the authorities to provide assistance to those in such dire and desperate need.

Maleeha also stressed the multidimensional nature of the challenge, which ranged from providing emergency relief to providing shelters and sources of livelihood until the task of reconstruction could be mounted. So far the assessment of the damage was about $5 billion, but even this was a tentative fiqure, she remarked.●