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Talks between uneasy SA neighbors saves train service |
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April 15, 2000
WAGAH, Pakistan, APR 14 (AP) - After six hours of talks, South Asia's uneasy neighbors, Pakistan and India, reached an agreement on Friday that will retain the only rail service between the two countries, said Mohammed Aurangzeb, chairman of Pakistan Railway.
The talks marked the first significant contact between the two countries since last October when the military seized power in Pakistan in a bloodless coup throwing out the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif.
Relations between the two countries has deteriorated steadily since last summer when they fought a bitter border dispute in the Kashmir region.
Friday's daylong talks revived a railway service agreement that had been in abeyance since 1994 after India failed to keep up its end of the bargain.
India had stopped supplying railway passenger cars and engines to run the twice weekly Samjhota Express, which weekly ferries 6,000 Pakistani and Indian passengers between the two countries.
The agreement required Pakistan and India to take turns supplying the rail cars and engine, said Aurangzeb. Every six months it alternated.
New Delhi stopped supplying the railway cars when a bubonic plague broker out in India in 1994. The disruption was to be temporary, but after six years Pakistan said it had had enough.
Pakistan threatened to end the train service which resulted in the talks.
Aurangzeb said India has agreed to supply the railway cars and the engine for the next six years to compensate Pakistan for its years of providing the service.
The next scheduled train service will go ahead on Monday from Pakistan. The train will return from India on April 20, he said.
The Pakistani delegation led by Aurangzeb, crossed the border at Wagah, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of the Punjab capital of Lahore, to hold talks with Indian railway officials.
"We want the train service to continue because people both in Pakistan and India will suffer if the railway service is withdrawn," Aurangzeb said earlier.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947. Two of the three wars were fought over Kashmir, a former princely state, divided between them. They both claim Kashmir in its entirety.
A third war was fought over Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan.
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