India suggests reunions for Kashmir families

India's top foreign ministry official said after meeting his Pakistani counterpart that New Delhi wanted to tackle the "human side" of the row over Kashmir, which is split between the two sides and claimed in full by both.

Pakistan said it would consider the plan, the latest in a series of confidence-building measures between the nuclear rivals arising from a slow-moving South Asian peace process begun in January.

"We put forward a specific proposal for a possible family reunion or meetings among relatives" at the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir, Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters in Islamabad.

"We have, after checking with our authorities, designated five places where the family reunions would take place on designated days under joint security arrangements by both sides," he said.

Contact between the two zones of Kashmir is currently non-existent. A bus service between Srinagar, the Indian-held summer capital, and Muzaffarabad in the Pakistani sector remains stalled because of a row over visas.