Last week Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on various new confidence-building measures between the two nations. Their talks, held during Mr. Musharraf's unofficial visit to India on April 17, produced agreement, for example, on the passage of trucks for commercial purposes over Kashmir's Line of Control, or ceasefire line. This is expected to greatly help ease tensions between the countries.
On April 7 direct bus service began operating for the first time between parts of Kashmir controlled by either India or Pakistan, thus giving impetus to confidence building. Hopefully the exchange of people and goods in Kashmir, over which the two countries have been squabbling for more than half a century, will open the way to a settlement.
India and Pakistan, which have gone to war three times in the past over the sovereignty of Kashmir and other issues, both conducted nuclear tests in 1998. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and others estimate that they each possess around 40 nuclear missile heads.