INDIA/PAKISTAN: India and Pakistan agreed yesterday to reopen consulates in their largest port cities of Bombay and Karachi, to notify each other before testing missiles and work towards resolving their 54-year old dispute over northern Kashmir province that is divided between the two nuclear rivals, but claimed by both.
Two days of talks that ended yesterday in New Delhi between the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries - the most senior civil servants heading their departments - also led to the decision to restore staff strengths at the respective embassies to 110 members each.
The embassy staff was halved following the December 2001 attack on India's parliament that led to a break in diplomatic relations and the halting of all transportation links between the two sides. Delhi blamed Pakistan-backed gunmen for the strike in which 14 people died.
Since then the ambassadors and bus, train and air services have been restored and peace talks initiated earlier this year.
The pronouncement by Pakistani foreign secretary Mr Riaz Khokhar and his Indian counterpart Mr Shashank of re-opening the Bombay and Karachi consulates, shut down in 1994, would make travel easier for families that were divided after the subcontinent's partition in 1947 by the colonial administration.
The nuclear-armed rivals, who came close to war two years ago, issued a joint statement pledging to "continue the sustained and serious dialogue to find a peaceful, negotiated final settlement" on the Kashmir dispute.
Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars and an 11-week long border conflict in 1999 between India and Pakistan since independence.
However, the lead up to the peace talks was marred by a wave of violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, with Islamic rebels killing 12 villagers, including four children and a teenage girl as they slept in a border hamlet on Saturday.
The resignation of Pakistani prime minister Mr Zafarulah Khan Jamali at the weekend also impacted negatively on the talks with foreign secretary Mr Kohkhar having to rush back to Islamabad ahead of schedule.
"We are moving carefully, cautiously, but in the right direction," Mr Khokhar said, adding that the joint statement though "not overly ambitious" was the right approach to resolving problems and developing confidence building measures. The two sides have opted to calibrate the peace talks away from the media glare and by circumscribing hyperbolic announcements.