The meeting between senior officials from the South Asian neighbours, part of a slow-moving peace process begun in January, focused on so-called nuclear confidence-building measures.

"Today, they zeroed in on the draft agreement on pre-notifictaion of flight testing of ballistic missiles," foreign office spokesman Masood Khan told AFP.

"If finalised it would be submitted to the foreign secretaries of the two countries, who are due to meet on the 27th and 28th of this month," Khan said.

With a chequered history of relations, including three wars since independence in 1947, India and Pakistan "have to be responsible nuclear weapons states," Khan said.

"There should not be an accidental or unauthorised launch or exchange of nuclear weapons. That will cause havoc," he said, adding that the measures under discussion would create an environment for "nuclear risk reduction."

Pakistan and India held tit-for-tat nuclear detonations in May 1998 and have twice come close to war over divided Kashmir since then.

However, the two countries normally inform each other when holding one of their frequent missile tests and the talks may lead to the signing of a formal agreement on the issue.

The delegations were led by additional secretary at the Pakistani foreign ministry Tariq Osman Hyder and his Indian counterpart Meera Shankar.

"We look forward to continuing the dialogue on nuclear CBMs (confidence building measures) that we started in June," Shankar told reporters in the Pakistani capital.

"I look forward to a result-oriented process which will be in the interests of both the countries."

The two sides also discussed the details of a hotline between top foreign ministry officials, which they agreed on at the talks in New Delhi in June, the first in the current peace process, Khan said.

They already have a link between senior military commanders.

Both sides also used the June talks to reiterate a 1999 agreement that neither would hold another nuclear test unless forced to by "extraordinary events".

Khan said the delegates would hold another round of meetings late Wednesday.

Another expert-level meeting is also scheduled on Wednesday to discuss confidence-building measures in the conventional field.

Last week during a visit by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India, New Delhi voiced its concern over the planned US sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad. India rejected Washington's arguments the planes were to be used against terrorists.

Analysts said India and Pakistan, who have both refused to sign non-proliferation treaties because they are not formally recognised as nuclear powers, had not convinced the world that their safety moves would be effective.

"This is all part of confidence-building measures, but to become responsible nuclear nations the two countries need to do much more," Parvez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physics professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, told AFP.

Pakistan has come under particular scrutiny after it emerged that scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the country's nuclear programme, passed nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

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