Neighbours help you as fighting virus trumps old rivalries
09 May, 2020
Face masks are delivered across dividing lines in Ireland and Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates sends medical supplies to rival Iran, and China and Japan exchange rare warm words.
The coronavirus pandemic may have exacerbated global tensions, especially between your USA and China. But occasionally it has additionally sparked cooperation between longtime rivals.
In a single ray of light amid the gloom, Northern Ireland's unionist Orange Order last month secured a shipment of personal protective equipment for distribution both north and south of the border with the Republic of Ireland.
That was highly unusual as unionists, who would like Northern Ireland to stay part of the UK, are usually wary of cross-border cooperation, seeing it as a gateway to Irish unification.
However the Belfast executive, which includes unionists, also signed a non-binding deal with Dublin to strengthen cooperation.
"We face a common challenge," said Northern Ireland's health minister Robin Swann, from the hardline Democratic Unionist Party. "Facing that challenge will test us as nothing you've seen prior."
His comment echoed what of Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who argued in March that "both epidemic itself and the resulting economic crisis are global problems (requiring) global cooperation".
Writing in the Financial Times, Harari warned that "a collective paralysis has gripped the international community" as the world faces a choice between "nationalist isolation and global solidarity".
Calls by US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in March for a "global ceasefire" also appear to have fallen on deaf ears, with fighting continuing in battlefields from Libya to Yemen.
Yet occasionally, the need to fight the virus has trumped old rivalries.
On the divided island of Cyprus, the federal government last month sent 4,000 components of protective equipment and 2,000 chloroquine tablets across the U.N.-guarded ceasefire line to greatly help the breakaway north.
It had been a rare act of goodwill between your EU member and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the northern third of the island in response to a Greek-backed coup.
But the delivery, nearly 3 years after peace talks collapsed, came under fire from nationalist politicians.
Prime minister Ersin Tatar accused TRNC president Mustafa Akinci of breaking customs regulations and argued that "if we are in need of something, we request it from Turkey".
The health minister in the north, Ali Pilli, begged to differ, telling news channel BRT TV that "irrespective of where (the aid) originates from, we accept it".
Earlier in the year, as the COVID-19 illness ravaged China, Japanese businesses and the government donated thousands of protective garments.
Chinese social media users hailed the gifts, and Beijing's foreign ministry said it had been "extremely touched" -- a long way off from the bitterness often overshadowing their relations since before World War II.
As in other cases, this generosity might have been partly motivated by pragmatism.
As regional expert Victor Teo told AFP, "it is definitely in Japan's national interest that medical threat remains contained."
Broader geopolitical trends could also have played a job. Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, remarked that China was "always more solicitous to Japan" when tensions rise with Washington.
The pandemic in addition has inspired unusual gestures in the centre East.
The United Arab Emirates evoked the virus within its outreach to the president of war-torn Syria, Bashar al-Assad, for a long time shunned by Arab governments.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan called Assad late last month for the first time since Syria's civil war began in 2011, pledging his country's "willingness to greatly help the Syrian people".
No aid deliveries to Syria have yet been reported.
However the UAE did dispatch a military plane in March carrying U.N. medical professionals and aid to Assad's ally Iran -- despite the fact the Emirates are allied with Washington against Tehran.
The help for Iran, hit by the center East's deadliest outbreak, was even more remarkable as it followed heightened tensions in the Gulf.
Recent months saw attacks on shipping, the downing of a U.S. drone and the American killing of a top Iranian commander that had sparked fears of regional war.
But senior Emirati aid official Sultan Mohammed al-Shamsi said that "aid should reach all people irrespective of their background."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif thanked the UAE, calling the pandemic a "global issue that will require the combined will of most countries to be defeated".
Michael Stephens, of the RUSI think tank in London, noted that "aid diplomacy is a major part of the Islamic world".
But he also pointed at self-interest. Despite their disagreements, the UAE and neighboring Iran have close trading links, and thousands of Iranians are in Dubai.
"I believe the deliveries were pragmatic above all else -- if your neighbors get the virus, you're in the firing line too," he said.
Moreover, he added, "anything that lowers tensions is an effective thing."
Source: japantoday.com