India-Pakistan Talks Yield Hope

India and Pakistan nudged their peace effort forward Sunday with agreements to improve trade and travel links.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to increase the frequency of a bus service to reunite families split by the division of Kashmir and to open a train link between their countries. They expressed support for a natural gas pipeline from Iran, which the U.S. opposes.

In a joint statement read by Singh today as Musharraf stood by, the two declared the peace process was “now irreversible.”

Musharraf said the talks were marked by sincerity and flexibility, but he urged India to do more for peace.

“Magnanimity should be shown by all,” Musharraf told Indian newspaper editors this morning. “But it has to be shown more by the bigger partner because when too much magnanimity comes from the smaller partner, all the negative connotations are given by the public -- by everyone -- that it is appeasement.”

In an apparent softening of his position, Musharraf did not publicly repeat his demand for an early solution to the Kashmir conflict. Official accounts of the meeting said Musharraf acknowledged that it would take time to resolve the dispute.

India wants to make progress on a range of issues to build confidence in the peace process before tackling Kashmir, the most difficult problem between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, the top civil servant in the ministry, told reporters that improving the tone of relations would help the two countries solve more complex problems.

The current push to resolve the 57-year dispute over Kashmir formally began in January 2004, when Musharraf and then-Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee agreed on the outlines of a step-by-step process. The nations are now in the second stage of the process, in which they are trying to build closer trade and cultural links.

Both countries claim sovereignty over the region, and Kashmiri separatists in the Indian-held portion have been battling security forces since 1989.

Many Kashmiris want an independent state, and Kashmiri leaders are frustrated that they do not have a direct role in talks about their territory’s future.

Singh told the Pakistani leader that India would not agree to redraw borders and reminded Musharraf of his commitment to ensure that Pakistani-held territory was not used as a base by militants.

The talks included “a sharing of the belief that, yes, the present positive trend in our relationship -- the peace process between our two countries -- would be adversely impacted by the activities of terrorist elements,” Saran said.

Indian authorities say the number of guerrillas infiltrating from Pakistani-controlled territory has dropped off sharply, but not entirely. There has been a surge of guerrilla attacks in Indian Kashmir, where about 250 people have died this year.

Musharraf’s visit was his first since a failed summit in 2001 and went off without the rancor of that meeting. He even invited India’s opposition leader, Hindu hard-liner Lal Krishna Advani, to visit Pakistan this summer. Advani was accused of sabotaging the summit in 2001, when he was deputy prime minister.

Advani accepted the invitation and said he had told Musharraf that continuing distrust was hampering the peace effort.

Before Sunday’s talks, Singh and Musharraf spent an hour together watching a game of cricket between India and Pakistan. Both leaders were cheered as they greeted players on the field.

But Indian fans later disrupted the match by throwing water bottles on the field as Pakistan trounced India, winning the six-game series, 4-2.

The two leaders also exchanged gifts, with Singh presenting Musharraf, who was born in New Delhi, with his birth certificate and a painting of his childhood home. Musharraf gave Singh, who was born in what is now Pakistan, an engraving in a wooden box.

Musharraf’s family was uprooted when Britain partitioned the subcontinent in 1947. Singh’s family left the western Punjab region of what is now Pakistan in the years before independence.