Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, left, shakes hands with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Khokhar prior to their meeting in Islamabad on Dec. 27. (Photo: AFP)

Islamabad : India and Pakistan ended talks between their foreign secretaries here on Dec. 28 with a New Year gift for Kashmiris that will allow the community divided between the two countries to meet without restrictions.

The move, one of the few confidence-building measures (CBMs) that found favor with both countries, was announced by India’s Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran at the conclusion of two days of talks with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Khokhar.

“We have passed this proposal that we will allow (Kashmiris) to meet each other at specific places and stations. We will chalk out the programs and schedules in this regard,” Saran told a news conference.

The two countries said in a joint statement after the talks that they had narrowed their differences on the draft agreement on pre-notification of ballistic missile tests and “agreed to work towards its early finalization.”

They also agreed to promote regular contacts between military commanders along the frontiers and to explore other CBMs along the international border and the LOC in Jammu and Kashmir.

India and Pakistan, which test nuclear-capable ballistic missiles from time to time, have an informal mechanism of advance information about such tests. But they want a formal agreement on this.

Until 1971, Kashmiris from the Indian and Pakistani-administered parts of the state met at specific points.

The practice was discontinued when the two countries went to war in December that year. The last time such meetings were allowed was in 1999 but only for three weeks. There was, however, no apparent movement on an Indian proposal for a bus service between Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, because of differences over travel documents.

Saran indicated serious differences on other issues that stood in the way of normalizing relations that the talks between the foreign secretaries and at other levels under a composite dialogue process hopes to achieve.

Cross-border terrorism still continued, Saran said, repeating India’s main complaint against Pakistan. He also made clear India’s position on the Kashmir issue ––– New Delhi would not “countenance another Partition based on religion.”