NEW DELHI, 18 February 2005 — The much-awaited Indo-Pak agreement reached this Wednesday on opening Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service from April 7 has been welcomed diplomatically and at home by Indian media and Kashmiris.
“Better late, than never,” stood out the caption in a photograph of Uri road that will be used by this bus service, splashed across an Indian daily yesterday.
While Indian Express has described the go-ahead given for the bus service as one of the most “important confidence building measures,” The Hindu has projected it as a “major breakthrough” in Indo-Pak ties.
“Wild celebrations in valley, PDP wants more links to be restored,” the Indian Express wrote.
“Win-win for both: India, Pak Rev Up on Road to Peace,” “Long wait ends as a divided people get linked” and “Bus moved and the wheels of commerce rolled too,” according to Times of India.
Commending India and Pakistan for their “spirit of cooperation,” UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement: “I warmly applaud the efforts of both India and Pakistan to make this happen.” Straw arrived in New Delhi on a three-day visit on Wednesday evening.
“I am very pleased that this bus link between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad will be able to reunite families that have been divided for decades. This will make a real differences to the lives of Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control,” Straw said.
Describing the Indo-Pak agreement on the bus service as a “significant and historic breakthrough,” a US State Department official said in Washington: “It offers an opportunity for more extensive people-to-people contact, improving daily life and promoting broad cooperation. The agreement, once implemented, would bring immediate benefit to ordinary Kashmiris.”
Hoping that India and Pakistan should make “further progress” in their talks, the official said: “We will continue to encourage the efforts of our two friends to find common ground and resolve their long-standing differences.”
Welcoming the move, Mehbooba Mufti, PDP president said: “By agreeing to start the bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, India and Pakistan have made a beginning toward making Jammu and Kashmir a bridge between them.” PDP is the ruling party in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
National Conference chief Omar Abdullah described the agreement as “a sign of flexible attitude of Delhi to find a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue.”
By dropping its insistence on the use of passports alone for travel in the bus, Abdullah said: “The center has shown the courage of moving away from the oft-repeated stand and find ways to bring peace in the region.”
The BJP, however, fears that the government’s decision to allow travel on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service by entry permit system is not in the “interest of India’s national security” as it could be “misused by terrorists.” “Allowing people to travel without passport, which is the authentic document of citizenship, will not be in the interests of national security,” BJP Vice-President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
Welcoming the move, leader of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Sardar Sikandar Hayat described it as a “breakthrough in resolving the core issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.”
Umer Mukhtar, spokesman for Al-Mansoorian militant outfit said: “The agreement reached between the two countries on running of the bus service is the result of their political compulsion.”
