India spells out steps to mend ties with Pakistan

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf arrives on Saturday at the Ajmer Sharif, the shrine of a revered Indian Sufi Saint Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, to pray for peace. Musharraft is in India for a three-day visit and during his stay he will watch the sixth and final one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan in New Delhi today. PHOTO: AFP

India documented 72 steps including seven on Kashmir and five military confidence-building measures (CBMs) it had handed to Pakistan since January last year when the two South Asian neighbours began taking cautious steps to improve ties.

"We hope agreements are reached on all the CBMs we have put forward," Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf began his first visit to India in four years with a pilgrimage to a Muslim shrine ahead of talks with Premier Manmohan Singh.

Among the measures, India wants new bus services between Kargil and Poonch in Indian Kashmir to Skardu and other points in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The launch of a bus service on April 7 between the administrative headquarters of the two Kashmiri zones has been hailed by the two sides as a historic step which has boosted their slow-moving peace process.

"We also seek an agreement in peace and tranquility along the LoC (Line of Control) with Pakistan just like the accords we signed with China in 1993 and 1996," another foreign ministry official told AFP.

The LoC is the de facto border dividing the two zones of Kashmir, where the Indian and Pakistani armies have been observing a ceasefire with only a few minor infringements since November 2003.

The Indian measures include "meeting points across the LoC" to enable people of Kashmir's two zones to meet, joint promotion of tourism in the Himalayan region and a higher degree of cultural interchange between the two sides.

Cross-border trade, pilgrimages, tourism and promotion of cultural links are among other measures expected to figure in talks Sunday between Musharraf and Singh.

India also seeks an accord on communication links between the two coast guards, a hotline between the foreign secretaries of the two neighbours, naval exchanges and periodic meetings between military commanders, said the foreign ministry official, who did not want to be named.

"Most of them are hanging fire and in the trade sector we have already asked Islamabad to accord the most favoured nation status on India as we have already done to Pakistan," he said.

"But currently the CBMs on Kashmir are paramount."

Earlier India's premier held a security cabinet meeting yesterday to map its strategy ahead of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's three-day visit to discuss the decades-old conflict over divided Kashmir.

The meeting reviewed initiatives India would put to Musharraf during the weekend talks in which the nuclear-armed rivals will seek to push forward a slow-moving peace process, officials said.

"All subjects likely to figure during Musharraf's visit were taken up," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after the hour-long meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The visit marks Musharraf's first to India since a failed summit with then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2001. He has made it clear that as in 2001 the focus will be on Kashmir, which both neighbours claim in full.