Pakistan said Thursday it will withdraw its forces from the border with India to peace-time locations as tension between the nuclear neighbours over the disputed Kashmir region begins to ease.
India on Wednesday announced a partial withdrawal from their common border, although it said its pullback did not apply to the disputed frontier in Kashmir itself.
The brief Pakistani response came after a meeting chaired by President Pervez Musharraf.
"The Government of Pakistan has decided to withdraw its forces from the Pakistan-India border to their peace-time locations, and the pullback will commence shortly," a statement from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Indian Junior Foreign Minister Digvijay Singh told Aaj Tak television that Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would go to Islamabad for a South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit in what will be his first visit to Pakistan since 1999.
(Xinhua News Agency October 18,2002)
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