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WAGAH, Pakistan, Tuesday (AFP) A delegation from Pakistan's radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Islamic party crossed into India at the Wagah border Tuesday expressing the hope that their week-long visit would improve understanding between the two countries.

JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, party vice president Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and fellow parliamentarians Gul Naseeb and Qazi Hameedullah are making the rare visit at the invitation of India's Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind Muslim party.

"It is a goodwill trip and will help promote understanding and realisation that all issues dividing the two countries should be settled through a purposeful dialogue," delegation leader Fazlur Rehman told reporters at Wagah.

Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India are bitter enemies and have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the northern Himalayan state of Kashmir, which is split between the two and claimed by both in full.

After an 18-month military stand-off on their common borders Islamabad and New Delhi began to move towards peace following Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's offer of a "hand of friendship" in April, which was promptly reciprocated by his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Jamali through several confidence building measures.

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