Despite high running tensions between Pakistan and India over held Kashmir, the Pakistan Foreign Office on Thursday said the two were cooperating with each other to fight desert locust invasion under a forum administered by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Dawn reported. 

Pakistan is part of FAO’s Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in South-West Asia (SWAC), which is one of the oldest of the three regional commissions within the global locust early warning and prevention system. Other members of the regional commission include India, Iran and Afghanistan.

FO spokesperson Aisha Farooqui, at the weekly media briefing, said the ministerial meeting of the commission held in March had decided to reactivate communication between the member states on the locust situation and a Technical and Operational Coordination (ToC) team was formed to exchange information; enhance coordination at the border areas; and increase synchronization to combat desert locust outbreak in the region.

She said Pakistan had been participating in SWAC meetings on a weekly basis. She described the cooperation as “fruitful” in exchanging information in the bordering areas of Pakistan and India. “We believe that the respective Technical Teams have been coordinating appropriately through FAO,” she further said.

Pakistan and India are facing the worst locust attack in nearly three decades and it is feared that crops worth billions of rupees would be lost. This has led to fears about food security in the two countries. According to FAO, early migration of locusts from Pakistan to India started last month. The situation is expected to aggravate further this month when swarms are expected to arrive from Iran and Horn of Africa.

The insects have, moreover, for the first time entered areas in the two countries that remained unaffected in previous invasions.

Ms Farooqui said Pakistan “remains committed to cooperating with all SWAC member states, including India, in combating Desert Locust outbreak”.

Cooperation against locust is a rare instance of the two arch rival neighbours working together since India illegally annexed Occupied Kashmir last August setting off new phase of tensions in ties between the two countries.

Internally in Pakistan, the fight against locust is being spearheaded by the Pakistan Army. Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa on Thursday presided over a session held to review the efforts for countering locust threat.