For the first time in six decades, separatist leaders from Indian-controlled Kashmir arrived Thursday on an official visit to the Pakistani side of the divided Himalayan region in a boost to peace efforts between South Asia's nuclear rivals. Nine moderate separatist leaders traveled on a recently inaugurated cross-Kashmir bus service, seeking to push both sides to settle the Kashmir dispute _ cause of two of the countries' three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. On reaching the militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir, the nine got off the bus on the Indian side and walked over the "Friendship Bridge" to the Pakistan side, where they were greeted by Sardar Sikandar Hayat, prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir, according to a report of the Associated Press.
