বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড)/৬০
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| প্রেসিডেণ্ট নিক্সনের সাংবাদিক সম্মেলন | সিনেটের কার্যবিবরণী | ৫ আগষ্ট, ১৯৭১ |
[From the New York Times, Aug. 5, 1971].
Washington, August 4- Following is the transcript of President Nixon's news conference today:
OPENING STATEMENT
Ladies and Gentlemen, I wanted to begin this with a brief resume of the conversation I have just had with the Secretary of State, because I know the subject will probably come up in any event.
This is regard to the Pakistan refugee situation, to recap what we have done. Insofar as the refugees, who are in India, are concerned, we have provided $70million to date for the refugees, and we are prepared to provide more. That, incidentally, is more than all the rest of the nations of the world put together, so it is a substantial amount,
As far as those in East Pakistan themselves are concerned, whereas you know there are prospects of famine, in the event that the crop reports are as bad as they seem to be, at this time we have 360,000 tons of grain ready for shipment there. We have also allotted $3-million for the chartering ships for the purpose of getting the grain into the overcrowded ports.
As a further step, the Secretary of State has worked out, with my very strong approval, a plan to go to the United Nations next week to talk to the responsible and appropriate members of the United Nations, including the U. N. High Commissioner in that office, to see what additional steps can be taken on both fronts to help the refugees in India from East Pakistan, and also to help those who are in East Pakistan and are presently confronting famine situations.
With regard to a problem that was addressed by the House yesterday, we do not favor the idea that the United States should cut off economic assistance to Pakistan. To do so would simply aggravate the refugee problem because it would mean that the ability of the Government of Pakistan to work with the U. N., as it presently has indicated it is willing to do so in distributing the food supplies-its ability to create some stability would be seriously jeopardized.
We feel that the most constructive role we can play is to continue our economic assistance to west Pakistan and, thereby, to be able to influence the course of events in a way that will deal with the problem of hunger in East Pakistan, which would reduce the refugee flow into India and which will, we trust, in the future look toward a viable political settlement,
We are not going to engage in public pressure on the Government of West Pakistan. That would be totally counterproductive. These are matters that we will discuss only in private channels.