Camps would be a key diplomatic breakthrough

The Associated Press

GULPUR, India — Drawn byth e promise of reconnecting with relatives they long ago lost touch with, about two dozen Indians gathered Tuesday outside a relief camp for Pakistani quake victims that Indian troops have set up along the disputed border in Kashmir.

Although the camp remains empty and unused as the neighbors tryto broker a deal that would allow people to cross the militarized frontier, it is already * lling some Kashmiris with hope.

“ I spoke to my brother over the telephone, and I was hoping I’d see him after all these years,” said Bhupinder Singh, a gray- bearded farmer whose brother lives in a part of Pakistani Kashmir near where the camp has been set up.

“ We are waiting to see if the authorities will allow our relatives to cross over or us to go across,” said Singh, who lives in the border town of Punch, near the camp.

If India and Pakistan agree on the camps, it would be a major diplomatic breakthrough for the rivals, who divided the region in a 1947- 1948 war.

The camp is part of a plan India announced Saturdayto set up three relief centers for quake victims along the Line of Control, which separates Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, said an army spokesman in Kashmir, Lt. Col. V. K. Batra.

The opening of the camps, originally scheduled for Tuesday, has been delayed because India and Pakistan are still trying to reconcile their competing proposals.

Of * cials from both sides are to meet Saturday in Pakistan, a spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry, Navtej Sarna, said in New Delhi.