SRINAGAR: India and Pakistan will open a historic trade link across divided Kashmir for the first time in six decades yesterday, a step aimed at reducing tensions between the two nuclear powers.
The decision, taken only last month, to allow limited trade across the military front line in Kashmir symbolizes attempts to solve the dispute by creating “soft borders” allowing the free movement of goods and people.
It will be the first time that trucks will roll between the two zones created in the bloody aftermath of independence of the subcontinent from Britain six decades ago, when the region was split into India and Pakistan.
“The step will go a long way to cooling tempers in (Indian) Kashmir,” said Tahir Mohiudin, the editor of Urdu-weekly Chattan in Kashmir.
The countries, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, are to resume trade across the heavily militarized Line of Control, a key demand of separatists who this summer led some of the largest-ever anti-India demonstrations in the region.
Lorries will roll on both sides of the 170-km Himalayan mountain highway which was the region’s vital and only surface link with the rest of the world before the partition of subcontinent in 1947. For the time being, trade will take place just once a week, with a limited list of goods allowed. Kashmiri handicrafts and apples will be exported from the Indian side, although it is unclear if carpets and shawls will be allowed across.
It will be the first time vehicles will be allowed across the cease-fire line and the newly constructed Aman Setu or Peace Bridge since the 1948 war, with the lorries expected to drive a few kilometers inside rival territory and unload.
Kashmir Gov. N.N. Vohra said the opening of a trade route would be an “important milestone” in India-Pakistan relations. But it does go toward meeting one of the demands of separatist groups, who have been leading months of anti-India protests, some of the biggest in years. “The trade between two Kashmirs is a good beginning. Our ultimate aim is the Line of Control between two parts is removed,” said Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, chief of Kashmir’s separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani delegation yesterday inspected the Baglihar power generation plant in Jammu and Kashmir 10 days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh commissioned the project in the power-starved state.
The seven-member delegation of Pakistan’s Indus Water Commission inspected the water storage at the dam in the Ramban district alluding its fears that India had blocked the supply of regular water (23,000 cusecs a day) to Pakistan from the Chenab River last month while filling the dam.
