India's foreign minister will visit Pakistan next month for talks on the nuclear rivals' 57-year-old dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, officials said yesterday. Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh will hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Kasuri and President General Pervez Musharraf during his visit in the first half of February, the official said. He said a proposed bus service between the Indian-and Pakistani-controlled portions of Kashmir and reunions between divided Kashmiri families would also be discussed in addition to other bilateral issues under discussion as part of a year-long peace process. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan confirmed that Singh had accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan, but said the exact dates for the trip were still being worked out. Singh's planned visit follows an inconclusive dialogue between the top foreign ministry bureaucrats of the two countries on Kashmir last month - part of the peace process aimed at ending enmity between the South Asian neighbours, which have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Pakistan's Dawn newspaper yesterday quoted an unnamed senior Pakistani official as saying negotiations over Kashmir were moving to a "higher political level." Meanwhile, Pakistan and India began a joint survey yesterday aimed at settling a border dispute in a marshland between the two countries, Khan said. The survey in Sir Creek area, between India's western state of Gujarat and Pakistan's southern Sindh province, will be completed between "three and four" weeks, Khan told Pakistan's Geo television channel. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Kashmiri fisherman rows his boat on a cold morning on the waters of Dal Lake in Srinagar, January 5, 2005. (REUTERS)