India sends aid for Pak quake victims

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said here on Monday evening that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed that a consignment of relief items "should be put together on a very urgent basis and delivered to Pakistan at the earliest."

This would be the first plane-load of relief supplies to Pakistan since the 1971 Indo-Pak conflict when an Indian Air Force jet would land in that country.

Saran said the Indian prime minister called Pakistan High Commissioner to India Aziz Ahmed Khan on Monday and "reiterated the offer to send relief for earthquake victims".

Khan later contacted the Pakistan government, which, after consultations, accepted the Indian aid offer.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told an Indian television channel that there was no problem in accepting aid from India in such a situation. "When it is a question of tragedy, it is not a question of one-upmanship".

Soon after Saturday's earthquake, Manmohan Singh had called Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and offered humanitarian assistance. Musharraf, in turn, had made a similar offer for the victims of the quake in India's Jammu and Kashmir state where more than 11,00 people have died.

Besides humanitarian value, Pakistan's acceptance of Indian relief aid carried immense political implications for the two nuclear-powered neighbours, which have taken several confidence-building measures in the last one year to improve bilateral relations.

Pakistan had earlier declined an offer of India to send helicopters to help distribute relief and ruled out joint rescue operations along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir.

Analysts here say Saturday's devastating earthquake offered an opportunity to overcome their past hostilities at a time of common adversity as they cope with a shared humanitarian crisis in Kashmir region.