Natwar Singh of India and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, were to hold a working lunch at the east Chinese port city of Qingdao, ahead of a gathering of foreign ministers from 22 Asian nations.

Shortly before meeting Singh, Kasuri said he was looking forward to his first direct contact with the new Indian foreign minister.

"I would like to build on trust, because the most important thing between the two countries at the moment is that we try and build trust and understanding," he told AFP.

"That will help us to meet the difficulties ahead of us, because we have major problems to resolve. Without resolving those major problems, we can't really think of durable peace in South Asia," he said.

Rather than producing concrete results, he expected the meeting with Singh to be a type of "getting-to-know-you" session.

He suggested that the recent Indian elections, won by the Congress Party, would probably cause no significant changes to attempts by the two neighbors to improve relations.

Kasuri has been in contact with Singh, who expressed his wish to take the peace process further than the previous Indian government.

"Mr Natwar Singh's own statements have been positive, and he has in fact told me that he plans to take the process forward and at a faster pace than the old ... government did," he said.

After two days of meetings in New Delhi, India and Pakistan agreed Sunday to set up a hotline to avoid nuclear confrontation and continue a ban on nuclear tests.

The two South Asian nations, which held nuclear tests two weeks apart in 1998 and have come close to war twice since, said they wanted to "promote a stable environment of peace and security."

The hotline will link the top civil servants in their foreign ministries, said a joint statement at the end of the two countries' first talks on nuclear risks since the 1998 atomic tests.

It said an existing hotline between senior military commanders, who have conversations scheduled once a week, would also be "upgraded, dedicated and secured".

Reaffirming a 1999 agreement, India and Pakistan said neither country would conduct another nuclear test "unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised its supreme interests."

Singh and Kasuri's talks will come on the sidelines of the third meeting of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), a mechanism set up on Thai initiative which brings together foreign ministers from across the continent.

Also on the sidelines of this event, foreign ministers from China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will meet later Monday for informal talks.

The two-day ACD will also bring together the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea for discussions that are expected to touch on the festering North Korean nuclear standoff.

The forum is a pet project of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is attending the talks, the first outside Thailand after gatherings in Bangkok in 2002 and Chiang Mai in 2003.

The goal of the ACD is to "ultimately transform the Asian continent into an Asian community, capable of interacting with the rest of the world on a more equal footing", according to the Thai foreign ministry.

WAR.WIRE