ISLAMABAD, 20 October 2005 — Pakistan and India wrestled with the details of a historic opening of the Kashmir frontier yesterday as a series of aftershocks traumatized survivors 11 days after a devastating quake.

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf proposed late Tuesday that Kashmiris should be allowed to cross the Line of Control that divides the Himalayan region and help family members with relief and rebuilding efforts.

“We have decided now we would allow an amount of people coming from across the Line of Control to our part of Kashmir to meet their relatives and assist in the reconstruction effort,” Musharraf said in Muzaffarabad.

India welcomed Musharraf’s remarks but said it was waiting for “practical details” of the proposal for the opening of the cease-fire line, which was set in 1949.

Before the earthquake, India had been skeptical of Musharraf’s calls for a “soft border” in Kashmir as it accuses Pakistan of sending across Islamic rebels fighting New Delhi’s rule in the Muslim-majority territory.

The Oct. 8 earthquake, which killed more than 41,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, came amid a peace process between the two countries which have gone to war two times over Kashmir. In April, there were emotional scenes among Kashmiri families who were reunited after decades apart when Pakistan and India started a “peace bus” linking Srinagar and Muzaffarabad.

But decades of distrust linger.

Meanwhile, Kashmiris waited eagerly yesterday for Pakistan and India to open the frontier.

Aid has still yet to reach half a million people after the quake.

The top rebel commander fighting Indian rule in Kashmir — Syed Salahuddin of the militant group Hizbul Mujahedeen — yesterday welcomed Musharraf’s suggestion that the LOC should be opened. “We welcome this proposal from the depth of our heart,” Salahuddin, who operates from Pakistani Kashmir, told AFP, although he added that the group believed India would not accept it.

A Pakistan-based alliance of Kashmiri militants groups yesterday backed Islamabad’s call for India to allow Kashmiris to cross the frontier in the divided region.

“It is in line with our position that the Line of Control is an unrealistic line,” Syed Salahuddin, head of the United Jihad Council, said of the cease-fire line dividing a region over which the two countries have fought two of their three wars. “We have never accepted this Line of Control as a border in the past nor we will accept it in future,” he said.

“We don’t think it will have any adverse impact on our freedom struggle,” he added. “Rather it will strengthen the cause of Kashmiris.” The main separatist alliance in Indian Kashmir, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, also welcomed the dramatic proposal. Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front which has renounced violence and wants the region to be independent of both India and Pakistan, called on the two countries’ leaders to negotiate immediately.

The Oct. 8 earthquake came amid a peace process between the two countries which have gone to war two times over Kashmir.