Shift in India Pakistan relation?

The Pakistani government has said India's decision to allow Kashmiri separatists to visit Pakistan is an encouraging sign.

Representatives from the alliance of more than twenty separatist groups, the All Party Hurriat Conference, are due to go to Islamabad later this month.

A government spokesman -- Major General Rashid Kureshi -- said Pakistan had pulled back a substantial number of its troops from the dividing line of control in Kashmir, as it had pledged to do.

Last month, India extended a month-long ceasefire in Kashmir.

The BBC Islamabad correspondent says one main sticking point remains the opposition of Pakistani-based militant groups who say they will continue fighting.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service