Trucks carrying tomatoes crossed the border between India and Pakistan on Monday, the first goods vehicles to do so in past 60 years, officials said. The neighbours agreed in August to allow each others' trucks over their only land border as part of a slow-moving peace process launched in 2004.
Porters on foot previously took fruit, vegetables and other items across the heavily militarised Wagah border, a decades-long tradition that now appears threatened. "Indian trucks entered our side of the border for the first time and brought around 1,200 crates of tomatoes which we unloaded here," a Pakistan Customs official told AFP.
The new procedure, adopted after demands by Indian and Pakistan traders, has "opened a new chapter of trade," said Nasir Butt, an importer from Lahore. But the porters have previously complained that they will lose their traditional livelihood.