Praise for India, Pakistan as Kashmir truce holds

The two countries have observed a ceasefire since November 26, 2003, along Kashmir's Line of Control, a move that helped pave the way for the start of peace talks in January 2004.

The ceasefire has spared villagers on both sides from random shelling and made it easier to open crossing points for earthquake relief.

Civilians have also begin crossing on foot for the first time in 60 years to check on the safety of relatives on the other side after the October 8 quake, which killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir and 1,300 in Indian Kashmir.

"The last two years have been the most peaceful ones in our lives," said 35-year-old shopkeeper Anwar Sidiq. "We used to live under constant fear of incoming shells from there," he said, pointing to the Pakistan zone.

"But it has stopped. We have no words to thank the two countries."

Two dozen Indian Kashmiris made history on Saturday when they walked over a 175-feet bridge from Tithwal to the Pakistani village of Chilyana to look for their missing relatives and mourn the dead.

The villages, on either side of the fast-flowing Kishen Ganga river that marks the ceasefire line, were among the worst hit by artillery duels before the truce.

"We were living in hell before the ceasefire. Now it is calm, except that it will take us some time to rebuild our homes destroyed by the quake," said Sidiq's mother Asmat Begum, 45.

The family's home was destroyed in the quake and they now live in a tent.

The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. They are now engaged in a slow-moving peace process, with the first fruit the resumption of a historic bus service connecting the two zones of Kashmir in April.

Tithwal is now a symbol of the peace effort, with regular meetings between Indian and Pakistani army and civilian officials who stop to photograph each other.

"Decades of enmity is giving way to trust," said Nasima Bibi, now living in a tent alongside the river, who cheered as army officers from two sides shook hands in the middle of the suspension footbridge when civilians crossed last week.