ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The visiting UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Antonio Guterres, on Friday assured President General Pervez Musharraf of continuing to provide all possible relief assistance in the earthquake affected areas.

Mr Guterres, who was prime minister of Portugal from 1996 to 2002, held out the assurance during a meeting with the president.

“The UN High Commissioner for Refugees assured the president that the UNHCR would continue to extend all assistance within its capability,” Foreign Office said in a statement later.

Mr Guterres also gave the assurance that UNHCR’s special experience in camp management would be fully deployed to assist camps already set up and in process for the earthquake affectees, particularly in view of the winter conditions.

The president thanked Mr Guterres for these assurances and expressed Pakistan’s deep appreciation for the outstanding and prompt relief assistance dispatched by the UNHCR in response to the earthquake disaster. The speedy provision of UNHCR tents, blankets and stoves from UNHCR stocks abroad, sent by air had been a great contribution, and also the ongoing UNHCR assistance in running relief camps, he said.

Pointing to the fact that Pakistan was a major partner of UNHCR having extended its shelter to Afghan refugees for over two decades, with still three million refugees in Pakistan, the high commissioner’s message was: The international community and UNHCR were in Pakistan’s debt, and it was but natural that UNHCR extended all cooperation to assist Pakistan in the present situation.

Notably, although UNHCR’s mandate is strictly for assisting refugees rather than disaster relief, it had opened all its stocks worldwide for Pakistan. The president and the high commissioner also discussed UNHCR’s continuing assistance for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and UNHCR’s programme for assisting Afghanistan to receive back the refugees over a period of time.—QA

Iftikhar A. Khan adds: “The race against time would be lost if sufficient funds were not immediately made available to save the lives of the quake survivors, particularly those on high altitudes”, Antonio Guterres, said at a press conference here on Friday.

He pointed out that the weather conditions would become very harsh in the next about two weeks.

He was accompanied by Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind and Secretary Safron Sajid Hussain Chatta.

He said the UNHCR would be ready to put all its capacity and resources at the disposal of Pakistan to assist it in this hour of trial.