After resuming their peace process last year, India and Pakistan have signaled their desire to move beyond decades of rancor by signing a new liberalized visa agreement that will facilitate travel between their countries of senior citizens, tourists and businessmen.

Though terrorism continues to cast its shadow over the ties between the two countries, the new visa regime signed during the Sept. 7-9 visit to Pakistan of the Indian Foreign Minister S M Krishna, will remove decades-old restrictions on people-to-people contacts and introduce the new categories of pilgrim visas and group tourist visas for the first time.

At their latest meeting here, which was aimed at reviewing the two countries last round of bilateral dialogue, India's Foreign Minister Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, also signed an agreement for cooperation in culture and agreed to expand the cross-line of control to include tourism and pilgrimages.

These new steps, coming on the back of significant efforts to normalize trade relations, are expected to further give impetus to the nascent peace process that was resumed after a gap of over two years in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Pakistan has said it remains committed to giving India Most Favored Nation-status by the beginning of next year and the two sides have said they want to boost bilateral trade to six billion U.S. dollars by 2014.

Media, the business community, political parties and the civil society have hailed the liberalized visa regime and other measures agreed upon by both countries to boost the people-to-people contacts.

Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma has said that in order to further promote India-Pakistan trade ties, "if Pakistan takes one step, India would take two steps."

Analysts here said that in order to enhance their trade and political ties, both India and Pakistan should put more trust and confidence in their relationship.

Considering the direction that the ties between the two countries are currently taking, it seems the priority is to first boost cooperation in the fields of trade, culture, healthcare, education, and industrial sector, and make it easier for the people to associate with trade, industrial sector, and other fields in the relationship between the two countries, one analyst said.

"This will help mitigate concerns and doubts, and create trust between the people. Under these circumstances, if attempts are made to resolve the major political and strategic disputes, the outcome can be much better compared to the past," the analyst said.

As far as the trade sector is concerned, it is not enough to just grant the status of the most favored nation, India should also relax the absolutely one-sided system of nontariff barriers, another analyst said.

India and Pakistan, both neighbors and both with nuclear weapons, should peacefully coexist with each other, and since India is a bigger country it should take the first step in building up the trust that should govern the two countries' relationship, the analyst said.