INDIA: Moderate Kashmiri separatist leaders say they are optimistic following a historic trip to neighbouring Pakistan as part of the continuing peace process between the nuclear rivals.
"It's been a very successful trip for us," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, leader of the moderate faction of Kashmir's main separatist grouping, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference.
The "composite dialogue" between the neighbours focuses heavily on the disputed Jammu and Kashmir province that each side holds in part but claims in entirety.
Since independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars and an 11- month military engagement over Kashmir.
Mr Farooq said: "The biggest benefit from the trip is that Kashmiris are being accepted as a party to the dispute." The triangular approach had been appreciated in Pakistan, he added.
The separatist leaders in Indian-administered Kashmir want a three-way dialogue with the Indian and Pakistani governments to resolve the disputed region's future.
It appears they might be succeeding.
The nine Hurriyat leaders returned home last week on the newly launched trans-Kashmir bus service that plies across the line of control dividing the majority Muslim province between India and Pakistan.
India had previously prevented the Hurriyat leaders from travelling to Pakistan and refused to negotiate with them despite the peace process launched by Delhi and Islamabad in January 2004.
But by relenting last month and allowing them to travel to Pakistan, India has indicated it is willing to consider a "soft border" between the two Kashmirs with the existing frontiers ultimately losing their relevance.
The formula used in settling the problem of Northern Ireland is under study by the two sides, officials indicated.
Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf said last week on a trip to Australia that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" in the Kashmir dispute.
But he warned that flexibility was needed on either side to resolve the issue in the war-torn state where the 16-year-old Muslim insurgency against Indian rule has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Separatists claim the toll is twice that.
The peace have as yet yielded little but both countries conceded the negotiations were "irreversible".
In April, three years after the two sides came close to war after downgrading diplomatic ties and severing travel links, India's prime minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Musharraf vowed they would not let terrorism "impede" the ongoing thaw in relations.
The two rounds of talks have focused on eight issues.
Other than Kashmir these include cross-border terrorism, narcotics smuggling and nuclear and conventional military confidence-building measures.
Bilateral easing of visa restrictions, communications, trade and the resolution of long-standing maritime boundaries are also on the agenda.
India and Pakistan will reopen their respective consulates in the port cities of Bombay, also known as Mumbai, and Karachi before the year's end and will resolve other long-standing territorial disputes.
These include the decades-old disagreement over the marshy Sir Creek estuary flowing into the Arabian Sea, and the military-stand-off over the 21,000ft Siachen Glacier in northern Kashmir, known as the world's "highest battlefield".
More soldiers die each year from frostbite and intense cold on the glacier than from combat.