Military officials from India and Pakistan are slated to hold talks today on the clearing of tens of thousands of mines along the de facto border of disputed Kashmir to facilitate earthquake relief, a top army official said.

V.K. Singh, army chief of staff who heads anti-insurgency operations in Indian Kashmir, told AFP Monday that commanders from both sides would attend the meeting at a point along the border called the Line of Control (LoC).

"We have requested a ... meeting and it may take place tomorrow," he said, indicating there had been a positive response from Pakistan.

"It is a pretty difficult task," Singh said. "Some of the mines were laid in 1949 and others have been taken out and replaced with new mines. Some of the mines could have even shifted from the original points."

Anti-personnel and anti-tank mines were among those that needed to be cleared after their deployment across the border regions in Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan.

"The clearing requires a joint agreement and the other side (Pakistan) should not object," Singh said.

Tuesday's likely meeting, at a yet to decided location on the LoC, follows a decision on the weekend by arch-rivals India and Pakistan to open up the heavy militarised LoC at five points to allow the easier flow of relief for quake victims from Nov. 7.

They agreed that those wishing to travel would follow the same procedures as people who have used a cross-border bus service launched in March.

But that process, which involves six applications forms, exchanges of lists of applicants from the two sides and then laborious checks, can take up to a month.

The two countries said they would try to process applications within 10 days but there are doubts that can be done.

"Bureaucracy is slow, they're going to have to evolve a new system," an official in Pakistani Kashmir, who did not want to be identified.

"They couldn't cater for the demand from bus passengers -- thousands applied but only 500 went. If they're going to go for the same system they're not going to deliver and I think they're going to go for the same system."

However, Minister of Social Affairs Zubaida Jalal said there would be special arrangements for earthquake survivors.

"There will be specific arrangements, keeping the situation in mind, arrangements on both sides to facilitate that, so I think they'll be able to cope with it," she told a news conference in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

She did not elaborate, but said the opening of the Line of Control would be a big boost for divided families.

Ordinary Kashmiris welcomed the news that they may soon be able to cross the line that has separated Kashmir since India and Pakistan fought their first war over the region shortly after their independence in 1947.

Pakistan's army has set up two relief camps and a field hospital for quake victims along its disputed Kashmiri border with India, an army spokesman said yesterday, a day after the rivals agreed to open the heavily guarded frontier to ease the delivery of aid.

The field hospital and one of the camps are in the town of Chakothi, one of the five points where residents will be allowed to cross the border starting Nov. 7, said Farooq Nasir, the army spokesman in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of Kashmir.

India has already set up three relief camps on its side of the so-called Line of Control, which has divided the Himalayan region for nearly six decades. The neighbours have fought two wars over Kashmir.