NEW DELHI, 23 October 2003 — India offered to talk with Kashmiri separatists for the first time and to open new border crossings with Pakistan — including one in disputed Kashmir — in an attempt to revive a stalled peace process.

In a highly symbolic move, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said the Cabinet had also decided to resume sporting ties with Pakistan, including the subcontinent’s most popular sport cricket, which were frozen in 2000 after a major military clash.

But he maintained India’s insistence that Pakistan stop separatists crossing into Indian Kashmir to join a bloody 14-year revolt and said dialogue was not possible with Islamabad unless evidence was seen on the ground that “cross-border terrorism” was being brought to an end.

Pakistan said it would give serious consideration to the new Indian proposals but added it was disappointed New Delhi had rejected its offer to resume dialogue.

A foreign office statement said any proposal that was substantive, genuine and unconditional would receive a positive response and urged India to reconsider its position on talks.

“We are disappointed that while making these proposals India has simultaneously reiterated its rejection of Pakistan’s offer to resume substantive and sustained dialogue to resolve all issues, notably the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,” it said.

Islamabad has repeatedly called for talks to resolve a 56-year-old dispute over Kashmir that has triggered two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Washington, which led international efforts to mediate between India and Pakistan since they went to the brink of a war again last year, “warmly welcomed” the proposals. “They represent a major step toward establishing normal links between these two important neighbors — providing a foundation for real progress in resolving differences between India and Pakistan,” said a US official who asked not to be named.

Sinha said India hoped its moves would persuade Pakistan to “give up the path of confrontation, the path of violence, the path of cross-border terrorism and come to the negotiating table”. Despite the expression of disappointment, India’s surprise move should at least partially ease Pakistan’s concerns over what it sees as Indian foot-dragging in a shaky peace process after the old foes came close to war last year.

New Delhi said its number two leader would talk with Kashmiri separatist leaders for the first time since the rebellion began in 1989 in a renewed effort to end years of fighting in its only Muslim-majority region.

But it set no date for talks between Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference of political, community and religious organizations, which is seeking a vote to determine the wishes of Kashmiris.

Hurriyat chairman Moulvi Abbas Ansari, who has favored talks with New Delhi, said the organization’s executive council would meet soon to discuss the offer.

“We will see what the offer is. The executive council will sit and decide accordingly,” he told reporters. But a breakaway Hurriyat faction backed by militants said talks were meaningless unless they included Pakistan.

The Indian Cabinet also agreed to propose to Pakistan a bus service between the main cities of Indian and Pakistani Kashmir — Srinagar and Muzzafarabad — as well as another bus link further south and a ferry service between the two nations’ financial capitals, Bombay and Karachi. India and Pakistan started on a shaky peace path and restored full diplomatic relations. But the process slowed amid rising violence in Kashmir and Islamabad’s concerns about the pace of progress in New Delhi.

— Additional input from agencies.