Two Pakistani soldiers dead in clash on India border

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Two Pakistan soldiers were killed and two wounded on Thursday in a clash with "unknown miscreants" on the border with India in the disputed Kashmir region, a Pakistani military spokesman said.

It was the most serious incident on the so-called Line of Control (LoC), an old ceasefire line separating the Pakistani and Indian armies in Kashmir, for some time, but the spokesman said the fire had apparently not come from the Indian side.

"The fire was not from the Indian bunkers," said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas.

Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India agreed to a ceasefire on the LoC in Kashmir in late 2003 and the truce, which has held apart form a few minor incidents, has underpinned a tentative peace process.

Relations between the neighbors, which have fought three wars since 1947 and nearly went to war a fourth time in 2002, have improved although they have made no significant progress in resolving their dispute over Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Abbas said a Pakistani patrol had challenged a group of people in woods in the Hajira area of southern Kashmir who then opened fire.

Separatist rebels have been battling Indian rule in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989 and for years they have been slipping across the LoC from Pakistani Kashmir into Indian Kashmir to battle Indian troops.

India has accused Pakistan of training and arming the rebels although Pakistan denies that, saying it only offers political support to what it calls the legitimate freedom struggle of the people of Kashmir.

Indian and Pakistani officials are due to meet in Islamabad next week to try to boost cooperation against terrorism as part of their peace process.

(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Writing by Robert Birsel)