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India, Pakistan to launch second train link by Jan

'Chances of opening Kashmir border slim'

Reuters, Afp, New Delhi/ Islamabad
India and Pakistan will reopen a second cross-border rail link by January, more than 40 years after it was severed following a war between the south Asian rivals, a senior Indian official said yesterday.
The train would connect the Indian village of Munabao in the western desert state of Rajasthan and the small town of Khokrapar in southern Pakistan, Indian Railways Chairman J.P. Batra said in a statement.
The statement did not give details.
The neighbours are already connected by a train service through the Wagah border in their northern Punjab region.
The two countries snapped all transport links amid heightened tension over Kashmir -- at the heart of decades of enmity -- as they were near the brink of war in 2002.
The links were restored after New Delhi and Islamabad launched fresh moves to make peace in 2003. Both countries say they want to open more routes between the two countries to help easier movement of people and boost the peace process.
The Khokrapar-Munabao link was earlier scheduled to reopen this month but it was delayed as new tracks on the Pakistani side were not ready.
Meanwhile, the chances are dimming that India and Pakistan will reopen their disputed Kashmir border after nearly six decades in the wake of the earthquake tragedy, Pakistan's disaster relief chief said Friday.
"My concern is that time is running out. If there are long parlays on the modalities then the window is closing," Major General Farooq Ahmad Khan told reporters when asked about the proposal.
Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf offered Tuesday to throw open the Line of Control, which has split the Himalayan territory since 1949, to let families help one another after the quake.
India welcomed the proposal but said it was awaiting details. Indian officials later said Pakistan had not made any concrete proposal.
Pressed on whether Pakistan had submitted a proposal to India, Khan signalled that Musharraf's remarks to the media were enough.
"Let me put the question in the correct perspective, " Khan said. "Should the time be wasted ... or should you wait forever that the proposal in writing would come?"
"At this time, on the Line of Control, the divided families need to join together. That's the bottom line," he said.
India has sent Pakistan three shipments of aid since the October 8 earthquake but their rivalry has repeatedly stymied cooperation to aid the desperate survivors in Kashmir, which has brought them to war twice.
The two countries failed to agree on a proposal for India to send badly needed helicopters after Pakistan said it would only accept the choppers without their Indian pilots.
India has in the past been sceptical of Pakistani calls to open the border in Kashmir, fearing that Islamic militants opposed to New Delhi's rule would take advantage of an open frontier.
The earthquake killed more than 51,300 people in Pakistan including its zone of Kashmir, Khan said. More than 1,300 people died in the two-thirds of Kashmir administered by India, according to Indian police.