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India, Pakistan open Kashmir trade

SALAMABAD, India - Trucks laden with fruit, honey, garments and spices crossed the heavily armed frontier in the Himalayan region of Kashmir yesterday as India and Pakistan opened a trade route between the two sides of the divided region for the first time in six decades.

SALAMABAD, India - Trucks laden with fruit, honey, garments and spices crossed the heavily armed frontier in the Himalayan region of Kashmir yesterday as India and Pakistan opened a trade route between the two sides of the divided region for the first time in six decades.

"I was 12 years old when I last saw baskets of fruits being packed to be sent to Rawalpindi," said Haji Abdul Ahad Bhat, 74, an apple farmer from the Indian side, referring to a Pakistani city near the capital, Islamabad.

The opening of the trade route is meant to bolster a 2004 peace agreement between the South Asian rivals. The truce has appeared increasingly fragile in recent months amid dozens of cross-border shootings and allegations from New Delhi that Islamabad supported attacks in India.

Separatists on the Indian side, who have stepped up demands for a trade route between Indian- and Pakistani-controlled sections of Kashmir during recent mass protests against Indian rule, hailed yesterday's trade opening as a victory.

Kashmir has been divided between predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan since the bloody partition of the Indian subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947. The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and both claim it in its entirety.

The trade route follows the introduction of other confidence-building measures in recent years, including the opening of rail and bus links between the two sides.

Yesterday, the mood was festive as a crowd watched the governor of India's Jammu-Kashmir state send off the 13 pickup trucks heading to the Pakistani side.

More than a dozen trucks carrying rock salt, garments and raisins made the crossing into India.

For now, the route remains largely symbolic. After this first exchange, only four trucks will be allowed across from each side once a week.

Sentiment against New Delhi runs deep in Jammu-Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state where most people favor independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 to end Indian rule, leaving an estimated 68,000 people, most of them civilians, dead.