© Mohsin RazaPakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony of the Kartarpur border corridor, which will officially open next year, on November 28.
"I, the prime minister, my political party, the rest of our political parties, our army, all our institutions are all on one page. We want to move forward," Khan told the event in Pakistan's Punjab Province on November 28.
"If India takes one step forward, then we will take two steps forward toward friendship," Khan also said in his speech.
India and Pakistan have a history of bitter relations since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
The two nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, where the two sides still regularly exchange fire.
In a rare instance of cooperation between Pakistan and India, the two neighbors have agreed to open a new crossing point between their two regions called Punjab.
Comment: Though the Indian govt welcomed the 4.7 mile visa-free fenced corridor, which was initially proposed in 1999 by then Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it objected to Khan mentioning Kashmir in his speech. Kashmir is a sensitive issue for India. India considers violence in the Kashmir valley an internal issue, and has long-accused Pakistan of supporting militancy there. Islamabad considers Kashmir a left-over issue from the acrimonious departure of the British in 1947.
The crossing, known as the Kartarpur corridor, is to open in November 2019.
It aims at making it quicker and easier for Sikh pilgrims from India to visit a shrine to Guru Nanak, the 15th-century founder of Sikhism.
The November 28 groundbreaking ceremony was attended by hundreds of Sikh pilgrims, Pakistani Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, two cabinet ministers from India, and other officials from the two countries.
Bajwa called the laying of the foundation for the crossing a "step toward peace, which our region needs."
The tourism minister of India's border state of Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu, was among those who crossed the border for the inauguration.
Comment: Sidhu, like Khan, is an Indian cricketer-turned-politician, and is the tourism minister of India's border state of Punjab. While Khan and Sidhu praised each other, the state minister received heat in the Indian media for his one-second hug of the Pakistani general and his photo with Sikh-separatist leaders during his visit to ground-breaking ceremony with Imran Khan.
"Both the governments should realize that we have to move forward," said Sidhu, a Sikh.
Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu laid the road's foundation stone on the other side of the border earlier this week.
Pakistan used to be home to a large Sikh community, but most of its members went to India during the 1947 partition, with only a few thousand remaining in Pakistan.
Thousands of Sikhs visit Guru Nanak's shrine in Pakistan every year.
Comment: Is this an isolated confidence-building measure, or truly a 'ground-breaking' event?
That remains to be seen, but with Chinese mega-bucks dangling the carrot of massive infrastructural development, peace, it seems, is finally becoming too expensive to leave in tatters forever.