Natwar Singh of India telephoned Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and told him "that from now the future of India-Pakistan relations would not lie in the past," a foreign ministry statement said.

"The telephone conversation touched on all issues of bilateral interest and was conducted in a spirit of friendship, cordiality and bonhomie," the statement added.

Singh made the call after Pakistan's high commissioner (ambassador) to New Delhi Aziz Ahmad Khan visited his office as well as that of the Foreign Secretary Shashank, who like many Indians has only one name.

Relations between India and Pakistan have steadily thawed since the previous Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, offered a symbolic hand of friendship a year ago.

Bilateral peace talks are set in New Delhi on June 27 and 28 after separate meetings on easing nuclear tensions.

But the fragility of the peace process was underscored this week by a sudden war of words over the basis on which talks would be held after the government change in India.

On Monday, Pakistan urged India "not to conduct diplomacy through the media" after Singh highlighted the 1972 Shimla agreement, which ended the countries' third war, as a "bedrock" for relations between the neighbours.

Indian officials believe the Shimla pact implicitly formalised the splitting of Kashmir, which both countries claim and where an insurgency against Indian rule erupted in 1989.

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