July 25, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1424

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NEW DELHI, July 24: India announced on Thursday the easing of visa rules for children from Pakistan seeking medical treatment.

New Delhi has also decided “at this stage to finance travel, stay and medical treatment” for a group of 20 ailing Pakistani children, the foreign ministry said.

The announcements came during talks between Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and Pakistan’s new high commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.

It was the first official-level contact between Mr Sinha and Mr Khan, who arrived here on June 30 in the first step towards re-establishing full diplomatic links between the two sides.

Mr Sinha told Mr Khan the decision to ease visa rules was precipitated by the popular response in India to the arrival here two weeks ago of two-year-old Noor Fatima for heart surgery, who was aboard the first bus in 18 months from Pakistan to India.

Fatima was reunited Thursday with her parents in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, where doctors mended several holes in her heart.

She has become a symbol of a new chapter in peace hopes between India and Pakistan.

Thursday’s announcements coincided with the arrival here of Juned Khalid, 8, who has had a heart problem since birth.

Khalid, who travelled here on the same bus route as Fatima, will also be treated at the same hospital, which waived its fees for the toddler’s surgery in a goodwill gesture.

Mr Sinha and Mr Khan’s conversation shifted to other topics of concern for the two nations, including the attacks Monday by suspected militants on Hindu pilgrims and a day later in an army camp in Indian Kashmir.

“The minister also expressed his confidence that the Pakistan government would make the necessary effort to prevent these terrorists from derailing the present process,” spokesman Sarna said. —AFP