Historic silk road to open

India, (AFP) India and China Thursday reopened the famed Silk Road, allowing direct border trade between the world's two most populous nations for the first time since their frontier war 44 years ago.

Chinese, Indian and Tibetan officials attended the opening ceremony held in driving rain and bitter cold at the 15,000-feet (4,545-metre) Nathu La Pass on the border between India's Sikkim state and China's Tibet region. The reopening of the pass marks the first direct trade link between the nuclear-armed Asian giants since they fought a brief but vicious border war in 1962.

Soldiers from both sides, wearing jackets against the cold, chatted and took photographs of each other before the official ceremony at the windswept border post wedged between two mountain peaks.