Nearly 2,100 Indian Sikhs arrive in Pakistan for annual religious festivities

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LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — More than 2,000 Sikh pilgrims from India arrived Tuesday in eastern Pakistan to join an annual commemoration of the birth of their religion’s founder, officials said, marking the first people-to-people contact between the two countries since a brief war in May.

The Wagah border crossing, closed for months because of tensions surrounding the border conflict, was reopened by Pakistani authorities to facilitate the pilgrimage, government official Nasir Mushtaq said.

The pilgrims arrived in Lahore before traveling to Nankana Sahib, a city in the Punjab province where the shrine of Guru Nanak is located, he said.

“Granting visas to Sikh pilgrims and reopening the border demonstrates Pakistan’s respect for religious minorities and commitment to fostering cultural ties, despite ongoing political disputes,” Mushtaq said.

Sikhs are a tiny minority in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations, and tensions between them escalated in April after New Delhi accused Pakistan of supporting militants who launched an attack that killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan denied the claim and called for an international investigation.

In the months that followed, diplomatic ties were downgraded, border crossings were closed and the two sides traded cross-border military strikes.

The fighting between the South Asian nuclear-armed rivals stopped after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had brokered a ceasefire to prevent a wider conflict. However, the two countries have yet to fully restore diplomatic ties, trade or the movement of people.