Trade route to open in disputed Kashmir

[Coventina]

Source: International Herald-Tribune

SRINAGAR, Kashmir: India and Pakistan were expected to open a historic trade link across Kashmir for the first time in six decades on Tuesday, a step intended to reducing tensions between the two nuclear powers.

The decision, taken 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.

But the history of war and mistrust means that progress is likely to remain slow and intermittent. A bus service between Kashmir, begun with much fanfare in 2005, has foundered in a sea of bureaucracy.

Trucks will roll on both sides of the 170-kilometer, or 110-mile, Himalayan mountain highway that was the region's vital and only surface link with the rest of the world before the partition of subcontinent in 1947.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/20/asia/kashmir.php

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This is good news.

May increased trade increase connectivity, and ultimately, peace.

[WhiteTara]

1. everyone wants peace.

now we must show the leaders how to follow our lead.