INDIA and Pakistan agreed to restart from next month coordinated patrols of their international border suspended after a bloody attack on the Indian Parliament two years ago, officials said yesterday.

The agreement came after a meeting between officials of India?s Border Security Force and Pakistan?s border Rangers near the Pakistani frontier town of Wagah on Saturday, the first since December 2001, military officers from both sides said. ?We have decided to carry out joint coordinated patrolling which will commence from January,? the leader of the Pakistani delegation, Lieutenant-Colonel Sher Zaman, told Reuters.

Zamam said the patrols would cover the international border between the two countries, which does not include divided Kashmir, where Indian and Pakistani forces separated by a military Line of Control agreed a truce last month. Another Rangers officer said the patrols would be launched after another joint meeting planned in the Indian town of Atari in mid-January. Indian officials said coordinated patrols could involve simultaneous patrols under separate Indian and Pakistani command on their own sides.

The military meeting on Saturday was the first to be held between the two countries since a December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani-based militants, which took the nuclear-armed neighbours close to a fourth war.