novel DELHI, June 10 Kyodo (EDS: ...

novel DELHI, June 10 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ANNOUNCEMENT)

India announced Monday it has reopen its airspace to Pakistani commercial flights in what is being seen as a gesturing aimed at defusing the crisis that has brought the couple nuclear powers to the brink of war.

The persuade came on the eve of U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's arrival in modern Delhi in a bid to de-escalate India-Pakistan tension.

External Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao told reporters that ''all restrictions placed since Jan. 1 onward Pakistani aircraft and Pakistani Airlines to overfly Indian territory are lifted.''

The ban imposed was after last December's terrorist attack upon the Indian parliament, which of recent origin Delhi has blamed on Pakistan-supported terrorist groups

Rao give an inkling ofed the move was an acknowledgment that Pakistan had mov to restraint the cross-border infiltration of militants into India's state of Jammu and Kashmir from the Pakistani-administered portion of disputed Kashmir.

''We are engaged in a self-same detailed assessment of the situation in succession the ground. We have decided that there has been any improvement,'' she said.

Indicating that further grades to ease tensions could be forthcoming, she said Monday's announcement was part of ''a sequenc reaction.''

Media reports had earlier speculated that India would simultaneously announce Monday that it would struggle back naval ships from waters shut up to Pakistan and send back diplomatic personnel who had been recalled from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Earlier Monday, Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf called forward India to reciprocate for measures being undertaken according to Pakistan to de-escalate tension along the couple countries' borders, preferably by resuming bilateral dialogue.

''India has to match what Pakistan is doing and Islamabad is awaiting the Indian replication We have to see what their answer is,'' Musharraf told reporters before embarking onward a three-day visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

He said that while he would like India to recommence dialogue with Pakistan, India might single announce some minor measures.

''The initiation of a dialogue proces upon (the disputed territory of) Kashmir -- that is what we expect'' he said, adding, ''There are other minor answers which we will keep examining as to what they really mean.''

Since December, the couple archrivals have deployed around individual million soldiers along their borders and the so-called Line of hinder that divides Kashmir.

Musharraf is owed to return to Islamabad forward Wednesday in time for talks with Rumsfeld who will be arriving in the Pakistani capital the same day.

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