Attack on bus terminal in Jammu and Kashmir condemned by Annan

Strongly condemning today's fiery attack on a complex housing passengers waiting to take the first bus trip across the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the landmark service was a tangible achievement of the composite dialogue between the India and Pakistan.

Through a UN spokesperson, the Secretary-General noted that the beneficiaries of the service, which was scheduled to be launched tomorrow between Muzzafarabad and Srinagar, would be the people of Kashmir, "who have been divided for decades and traumatized by violence."

Mr. Annan commended the spirit of Indian-Pakistani compromise that led to the important confidence-building measure and hoped "the bus service will begin as planned," helping "pave the way for additional confidence-building arrangements followed by substantive agreements on all outstanding issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir."

The UN Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has been deployed to observe a ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir since 1949. The princely state was split between the two South Asian countries after they won independence from the United Kingdom in 1947.