Senior foreign ministry officials of the two countries hammered out the understanding in two days of talks after the south Asian giants returned to the negotiating table on Monday in a new quest for peace after a hiatus of more than two years.

"A broad understanding was reached on the modalities and timeframe for commencing the composite dialogue," both sides said in identical statements released separately.

The officials will submit their recommendations to the meeting of the Indian and Pakistan foreign secretaries on Wednesday.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shashank arrived here Tuesday for the upcoming meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Khokhar.

The statement issued after Pakistani and Indian officials held a new round of talks Tuesday, did not elaborate on whether the two sides agreed to all the items in the proposed eight-point agenda discussed Monday.

Earlier a foreign ministry official told AFP Pakistan has asked India to negotiate a joint agreement to lower the threat of war between the nuclear-armed rivals.

A foreign ministry official said Pakistan hoped that its suggestion for "strategic restraint regime" would become part of the agenda.

"The proposal calls on the two sides to negotiate the threshold for minimum nuclear deterrence," said the official, asking to remain anonymous.

"There should not be an open-ended race for strategic or conventional arms. It also aims to limit the risk of a nuclear conflict and a missile race."

Shashank told Pakistan's state-run news agency APP in New Delhi before his departure that the delegations had prepared a comprehensive document.

"The outline has already been prepared and it is a comprehensive document which has been agreed to by both the sides at the highest level. What is required now is that we start the (peace) process sincerely," APP quoted him as saying.

The concept of the "strategic restraint regime" was first raised at 1998 talks between the two sides and referred to again in the Lahore Agreement of February 1999.

The Indian delegation called on Khokhar Tuesday morning before going for talks at the nearby hill resort of Murree, where a broad understanding was reached, officials said.

The talks in Islamabad followed a landmark summit between President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the sidelines of a South Asian summit in Islamabad last month.

Indian officials proposed dialogue on implementation of the commitment made by Pakistan in the January 6 statement on the issue of cross-border terrorism and infiltration in Kashmir, sources in the Indian camp told AFP.

A joint statement issued after the talks last month said President Musharraf "reassured Prime Minister Vajpayee that he will not permit any territory under Pakistan's control to be used to support terrorism in any manner."

The talks follow several confidence-building measures launched by India and Pakistan including a November 26 ceasefire along the heavily militarised Line of Control that divides Kashmir between the two countries.

After a 10-month tense military standoff, both countries launched a peace initiative in April and have since restored full diplomatic relations, resumed communication links and lifted a mutual ban on flights over their territories.

Bilateral ties had earlier plunged to their lowest ebb after a bloody attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 which India blamed on militants from Pakistan. The rival neighbours massed more than a million troops along their common border in battle-ready positions.

However, US-led international diplomacy averted a feared nuclear conflict between the traditional rivals who have fought three wars, two of them over the Kashmir dispute, since independence in 1947.

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