Islamabad, September 4: Pakistan on Thursday offered to host a meeting to speedily operationalise cross-LoC trade between the two parts of Kashmir in line with a decision made at talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan in July. The proposal was made by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir at a meeting here with Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal, the Foreign Office said. The proposal is "in pursuit of the agreement-in-principle already reached at Foreign Secretary-level talks" held in New Delhi on July 21.
"Pakistan has proposed to India to host a meeting in Islamabad to operationalise, as soon as possible, the cross-LoC intra-Kashmir trade," said the statement. Bashir also conveyed the readiness of the Chamber of Commerce of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to send a delegation to Srinagar as soon as possible. The Indian side had sought a meeting with the Pakistani Foreign Secretary to explore ways to start trans-LoC trade, said sources.
Pakistan's proposal to host the meeting represented a "good opportunity to push the proposal" for trade between the divided parts of Kashmir, the sources said. There have been demands from groups in both Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for the opening of routes for trans-LoC trade. The demands have intensified following the recent Jammu unrest during which allegations of an economic blockade of the Kashmir valley surfaced. India had been maintaining that it was ready to commence cross-LoC trade but was awaiting Pakistan's willingness to implement the proposal. During their talks in July, foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan agreed on a set of confidence-building measures aimed at facilitating travel across the LoC, including doubling the frequency of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalkot bus services.
