Pakistan, India to restore rail link Feb 18 after 41 years
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-31 18:25

Pakistan and India agreed Tuesday to restore service along a rail link cut off more than four decades ago by war, the latest confidence-building measure in the nuclear-armed rivals' wide-ranging peace process.

The deal to start running trains on February 18, establishing the second rail link between the two nations, came after months of negotiations.

Pakistan will operate the service for the first six months of the year, then Indian for the other six months.

The "Thar Express" will run from Mirpurkhas in southern Pakistan and pass through the border town of Khokhrapar and on to Munabao in India's western state of Gujarat. It will run every Saturday and return the same day.

Mushtaq Khan Jadoon, additional general manager at state-run Pakistan Railways, and Ashok Gupta, an adviser with the Indian railways ministry, signed the agreement in Islamabad and shook hands.

The service was originally set to reopen February 1, but the date was pushed back due to delays in preparations on the ground, a Pakistani railways official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The leaders of Pakistan and India agreed to reopen the rail link _ which was severed during a 1965 war between the South Asian rivals _ during a summit in New Delhi in April 2005. Since then officials from the two sides have met several times to iron out the details.

A rail link between Lahore and New Delhi was restarted in 2004, weeks after the two nations began their peace process aimed at burying six decades of hostility.

The peace talks have seen the two countries restore transportation, diplomatic and cultural ties, but progress has been slow on resolving their bitter dispute over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, focus of two of their three wars since independence in 1947.