Pakistan said today preparations were complete for opening border crossing points with India, but New Delhi said it was ready to open only one of five points to help survivors of last month's quake.
The Pakistani proposal to open five points on the old rivals' disputed border in Kashmir appears more of a symbolic gesture of friendship, rather than something that will make a big difference for efforts to bring relief to survivors.
"We are making all preparations," said a Pakistani military official, standing about 200 metres (yards) from a crossing with India near the town of Chakothi in Pakistani Kashmir.
"From our side, preparations are complete," said the official, who declined to be identified. The earthquake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province, making it the country's worst disaster. About 1,300 people were killed in Indian Kashmir.
More than four weeks after the disaster, underfunded aid agencies are struggling to head off a second wave of deaths as a bitter winter closes in. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf proposed opening five points on their disputed border in Kashmir, known as the line of Control, last month for divided families to meet and to allow aid to cross both ways. India agreed and the two sides said the crossings would open on November 7th.
But on Saturday, India said only one of the five, in its Poonch district, would open on Monday. Another crossing point would open on Wednesday and a third on Thursday. Work to clear the way to two other points, including the removal of landmines, was continuing, Indian officials said.
The Indian army said a relief camp at the first point to open, at Chakan da Bagh, was ready to host 100 people. "We have restored a helipad to evacuate emergency patients who will come across the border," Colonel S.K. Gautam, an Indian army spokesman, said.
While the Pakistani military might be ready to open the border at Chakothi, the road linking the town to the rest of Pakistan is still blocked by landslides. So any aid sent in from the Indian side would still have to be moved by helicopter to communities outside the immediate area.