Almost immediately after the temblor tore through the disputed territory, there was talk that the awesome scale of the disaster could prompt the nuclear rivals to accelerate their nearly two-year-old peace process.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quickly proposed crossings on the Line of Control, the de facto border, in a move that was ostensibly for aid but that would have also reunited Kashmiri families after almost six decades.

Less than a month after the earthquake Indian and Pakistani soldiers were shaking hands and passing supplies over the heavily militarised frontier in unprecedented scenes.

But tellingly the Pakistani forces also teargassed angry locals who were not allowed to pass through themselves despite the earlier plans, and now the flurry of peacemaking seems to have stalled.

Instead of drawing comparisons with the peace deal in Indonesia's Aceh after the 2004 tsunami, commentators are more likely to point to the unchanged situation in Sri Lanka which was affected by the same disaster.

"It was mainly because both the establishments did not feel confident enough to exploit this opportunity," says Mohammad Afzal Niazi, a Pakistani newspaper commentator and political analyst.

"The earthquake did seem to have opened possibility but they could not realise their potential."

The Kashmir problem -- the cause of two of three wars between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain and partition in 1947 -- has resisted almost every attempt to resolve it.

In late 2003 New Delhi and Islamabad agreed on a ceasefire along the Line of Control and in January following year they began a peace process centred on Kashmir but including other issues.

The first tangible result was not until April this year when a historic bus service was launched linking Muzaffarabad, the now devastated capital of the Pakistani side, and Srinagar, the summer capital of India's portion.

By early October the two countries were again bogged down in small print about advance notice of missile tests, prisoner exchanges and other matters.

"The momentum was dying down when the earthquake struck Kashmir," says Niazi. "There was a hope that the quake would play some role in bringing the two sides together."

But even with the deaths of 73,000 people in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir and more than 1,300 in India's part of the territory, the two governments could agree on almost nothing.

India offered vital helicopters for the aid effort but Pakistan refused to allow them to be piloted by Indians. The two sides squabbled about alleged border incursions by each others soldiers and choppers.

The deal to open crossing points was nearly scuppered by bombings in New Delhi in early November, which killed more than 60 people and were blamed on Kashmiris militants.

Then the crossings themselves proved a damp squib, with only a few dozen Kashmiris allowed to cross and the amounts of aid going through being largely symbolic.

"At first I was optimistic," says a Western diplomat in Islamabad who specialises in political affairs. "They were opening up the (Line of Control) and it all looked rather good. But nothing has really happened since then, has it?"

The ongoing sensitivities over Kashmir came back into play, with India knowing that the border openings fit Musharraf's attempts to push for a soft border in Kashmir.

India has been skeptical, fearing that Islamic rebels who have led a bloody 16-year insurgency in its part of Kashmir would use an open frontier to infiltrate and step up attacks. Pakistan denies supporting the fighters.

"Contrary to what Indian officials were expecting, violence has continued and in fact intensified in Kashmir," says Indian Kashmiri political commentator Tahir Mohiudin, who also edits region's leading Urdu weekly "Chattan" ("Rock").

Other observers urge patience. Zoya Hassan, political science professor at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, says the current situation "augurs well" and that both governments seemed commited to achieving peace.

"You have to give some time for the gulf to be bridged because distrust and bickering have existed for decades," he says.

Many Kashmiris themselves are doubtful that the dispute can be resolved, earthquake or no earthquake.

"This earthquake did bring some hope for the people in Kashmir but it will take a miracle to wipe out the long history of bloodshed, hostility and mistrust," says Mir Mukhtar, a driver who came to Pakistani Kashmir from the Indian sector in 1990.

"Not in our lifetime perhaps," adds Mohammad Omar, a 24-year-old waiter at a roadside cafe in the Pakistani Kashmir village of Chaliana. He crossed from Baramulla on the Indian side in 1990 and his parents still live there.

"The death and destruction caused by the earthquake we thought would bring some respect for the people of Kashmir but that was just a wishful thinking. What is the point in opening the Line of Control if Kashmiris cannot cross over?"

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