India and Pakistan agreed today to open the heavily militarised frontier in the disputed Kashmir region to help victims of the devastating South Asia earthquake, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said.

India has offered $25m (€20.5m) in aid to Pakistan, an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said, in the latest goodwill gesture between the two countries since a powerful earthquake devastated the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan’s president said his country would work with nuclear rival India to ease tensions in the disputed Kashmir region and to start “a new era of peace and cooperation in south Asia”.