India, Pakistan to talk Kashmir quake relief

A homeless Pakistani Kashmiri woman makes bread for her family outside their makeshift tent in Chinari, some 58km from Muzaffarabad Thursday. Relief officials warned that world aid pledges for Pakistan's quake may be too late to save lives. PHOTO: AFP

The two sides were due to meet today to discuss their differing plans on how to help Kashmiris, who were the worst hit by the October 8 disaster and make up the majority of the 55,000 dead.

Officials said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former US President Bill Clinton may also visit Pakistan in the near future in a bid to secure more aid from the international community before winter sets in.

"The Indian delegation is arriving in Islamabad late in the evening. The talks will be held tomorrow," Pakistani foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.

India said on Thursday that it had pledged 25 million to its traditional rival Pakistan following the quake, but efforts to let aid flow across the highly militarised Line of Control in Kashmir have been beset by problems.

Despite warnings that tens of thousands of survivors trapped in remote villages in Pakistani Kashmir may die of exposure before relief workers can reach them, they have been unable to reach a compromise.

Early last week Pakistan's President Musharraf proposed opening five crossing points on the Line of Control, which Kashmiris on both sides of the divide could use to reach stricken relatives.

India's counterproposal is to establish relief camps at three points on the frontier and it has already stockpiled aid at the locations -- Teetwal in the district of Tangdhar, Kaman Post in devastated Uri district and at Chakan Dabagh in southern Kashmir's Poonch district.

Pakistan and India have fought two wars over the Himalayan region since independence in 1947 but have been engaged in a slow moving peace process since January 2004.

Meanwhile the foreign office's Aslam said Annan and Clinton may visit Pakistan but said the timing of their trips was still being finalised.

"There is a possibility that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan may visit Pakistan," she said. "One possibility is that his visit may coincide with a donors' conference being held in Islamabad on November 18."

The spokeswoman added that if Clinton visited it would echo the tours he made of areas devastated by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.