Deadlock ends, trade on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route to resume

Indian and Pakistani authorities today agreed to resume cross-Line of Control (LoC) trade on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route from Thursday.
"The trade on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road will resume from Thursday," a senior official said after a meeting with PoK officials at Kaman Post.
The meeting was called to end the deadlock over the cross-LoC trade.
The PoK authorities had suspended trade and travel between the divided parts of Kashmir on January 17 after 114 packets of brown sugar were recovered from a truck carrying goods from Muzaffarabad to Uri.
The driver of the truck was also arrested.
After three rounds of talks, the PoK authorities agreed to resume the bus service but remained adamant over their demand for release of the arrested PoK driver.

The standoff between the two sides left 75 drivers -- 48 from PoK and 27 from Indian side of Kashmir -- stranded on the other side of the LoC as Pakistani authorities refused to let them return to their hometowns.
However, Pakistan relented and allowed the drivers to return following meetings at diplomatic level between New Delhi and Islamabad.