Pak has not received any proposal for holding talks: Abdul Basit

Pakistan has not received any formal or official proposal from India for holding the next round of foreign secretary-level talks in Islamabad, the foreign office has said.

Responding to external affairs minister SM Krishna's comments that it was now the Indian foreign secretary's turn to go to Islamabad for parleys, foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit told the media that Pakistan welcomed the remarks which are "really encouraging".

However, Basit noted that this was the Indian minister's "personal desire" and not the official position.

He made it clear that Pakistan had not received any formal or official proposal from India for holding the next round of foreign secretary-level talks.

Talks between Pakistan and India would only be possible through mutual understanding and as India has not yet conveyed anything to Pakistan it is not known when the next round of talks would be held, Basit said.

Rao had met her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in New Delhi on February 25, the first official contact between the two countries since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which India had blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba.

The two sides did not make any major breakthrough in the talks.

Since then, Pakistan has been insisting that India should resume the stalled composite dialogue process without conditions.

New Delhi has said it prefers a gradual process for the normalisation of relations.