Post-quake diplomacy brings hope to grieving Kashmiris

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Wednesday (Reuters) Destitute and grieving after the earthquake that destroyed their homes, Kashmiris in Pakistan held out hope on Wednesday that India would let their kinfolk cross a ceasefire line to help them.

The quake on Oct. 8 killed more than 41,000 people and left over a million homeless in Pakistan's Kashmir and North West Frontier Province. At least 1,300 died on the Indian side of the border.

Faced with a mammoth humanitarian crisis, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf made a surprise offer, swiftly welcomed by India, to allow people from the Indian side come to the aid of their fellow Kashmiris.

"We will allow every Kashmiri to come across the Line of Control and assist in the reconstruction effort," Musharraf said in a news conference given in Pakistan Kashmir's shattered city of Muzaffarabad late on Tuesday.

The Pakistani president said he also wanted to ease the way for political leaders on both sides to visit and interact as part of the drive to resurrect what is now a death zone.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman promptly welcomed the offer, asking Pakistan to give details how it could happen, and with the political will there it will now be up to bureaucrats to work out the terms of transit.

A well-known separatist leader, who wants Kashmir independent of both New Delhi and Islamabad, endorsed Musharraf's proposal.

"Kashmiris want to help their brethren," said Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in Indian Kashmir.

"I have already said politics should take a back seat and Kashmiris be allowed to help each other," Malik, said in Islamabad, on his way to Muzaffarabad with a consignment of aid.

Pakistan, while accepting other aid from India, refuses to let Indian troops join in the rescue work on Pakistani soil, even though their own soldiers are struggling to clear the way into valleys cut off by landslides and fallen bridges, and too narrow for helicopters to fly safely.

Pakistan still needs more helicopters to drop off supplies and bring out casualties, but it asked India for helicopters without crews, as it meant flying over a region at the centre of two of three wars India and Pakistan have fought.

New Delhi refused to accept the precondition.

"We have accepted all assistance except military men coming across and one should not grudge that," Musharraf said, defending his government's stance.

"Other than that we have accepted everything. They want to give us financial aid, they want to give us medicines, they want to give us relief goods ... already we have accepted," he said, thanking Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh again.

In an address to the nation on Tuesday, Musharraf described what his army was doing to deliver relief, and repeated his call for the international community to send tents and blankets.

With winter looming in the Himalayan foothills there are fears for the safety of tens of thousands of people stranded in the uplands without adequate food and shelter.

Injured are dying for lack of medical care, doctors say.

Major-General Farooq Ahmed Khan, federal relief commissioner and Musharraf's point man in the crisis, said that aside from the need for winter-proof tents, Pakistan desperately needed supplies of at least 100,000 anti-tetanus shots.

Thousands of survivors were still living in the open in cold night temperatures, "some with open or gangrened injuries and with little access to clean water", the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

The Geneva-based federation - the world's largest disaster relief network - also raised the alarm over a slow international response to appeals for money to help the victims.

"This is a race against time," warned Antonella Notari, International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman, noting that winter weather would soon make it impossible even for helicopters to reach some mountain valleys.

Jan Egeland, U.N. Emergency relief coordinator, will chair a ministerial meeting in Geneva on Oct. 26 to review relief aid to survivors in all stricken South Asian communities, said the Office for Humanitarian Affairs.