India, Pakistan resuming air links
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Indian Civil Aviation Director General Satyendra Singh, left, shakes hands with Pakistan Additional Secretary of Ministry of Defence, retired Maj. Gen. Muhammad Ashraf Chaudhry prior to their official talks in New Delhi, India.
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NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- India and Pakistan agreed to resume air links and allow overflights after a two-year halt.
The move will lay the groundwork for India's prime minister to travel to Islamabad next month for a regional summit.
An Indian aviation official said the two sides reached the agreement during talks in New Delhi on Monday.
"A joint statement is being prepared," the official, who took part in the talks but who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf offered on Sunday to end a ban on Indian flights over Pakistani territory, the main obstacle to resuming air links severed in January 2002 during tension over disputed Kashmir.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is due to travel to Islamabad for the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) from January 4 to 6.
A bus service connecting New Delhi with the Pakistani city of Lahore which was resumed in July is the only transport service between the neighbors.
But both sides have said they wanted to resume train services and discuss new links, including a bus between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir and a ferry between Bombay and Karachi.
Officials say peace proposals by both sides in recent weeks would help prepare an atmosphere for the SAARC summit -- already delayed a year because of the tension -- to go ahead.
But India insists there cannot be bilateral talks on the margins of the summit until Pakistan stops sponsoring Islamic militants fighting its rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
A cease-fire between India and Pakistan took effect along the Line of Control (LOC) last week, in a bid to end the two countries' decades-long dispute over Kashmir.
Indian and Pakistani forces routinely trade fire across the U.N.-drawn LOC that separates Pakistan-controlled Kashmir from Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Pakistan and India have gone to war three times since they were carved out of British colonial India in 1947, twice over Kashmir, which they both claim, where tens of thousands have died in a 14-year Muslim insurgency.
India has so far refused to resume peace talks, saying Pakistan must end support for Muslim militants fighting its rule in Kashmir.
Islamabad denies that charge and accuses New Delhi of rights abuses in the disputed region.
Copyright 2003
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
