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India, Pakistan to sign military trust-boosting deals: reports
NEW DELHI (AFP) Oct 01, 2005
Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan will next week sign accords to improve trust between their militaries including one giving advance warning of ballistic missile tests, newspaper reports said Saturday.

The agreements are expected to be signed during a four-day visit by Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh to Pakistan starting Sunday.

Another accord to be signed would establish a hotline between the coast guards of the two countries. These agreements come after New Delhi and Islamabad also recently agreed to set up a hotline to stop an accidental nuclear exchange.

Singh, making his second trip to Pakistan since February, would also push for an extradition treaty, reports in The Hindu and The Times of India newspapers said.

India says many of its fugitives are in Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

The missile test warning deal was struck during talks between Indian and Pakistani officials in New Delhi in August during the second round of peace talks held since the formal peace process began in January 2004.

The talks cover eight subjects including the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan and trigger of two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, will review progress made in the second set of talks.

The Islamabad talks follow a meeting in mid-September between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York that ended without any big initiatives, contrary to some expectations.

Ahead of the foreign minister's visit, India unveiled Friday a slew of measures to spur people-to-people contacts with Pakistan.

These included liberalisation of consular and visa services -- often difficult procedures for people on both sides of the border due to prickly relations.

The measures are expected to ease travel for pilgrims, sick people wishing to get medical treatment in India and others wanting to visit family members.

The peace process has so far produced a number of largely symbolic steps, including a bus service across divided Kashmir and resumption of sporting ties.

But progress has been sluggish on central issues such as Kashmir itself.

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