Pakistan and India here Monday inked an agreement on pre-notification of each other's ballistic missile tests.

The agreement was signed by the two countries' foreign secretaries following the official talks between Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh here at Foreign Office.

The agreement entails that both countries provide each other advance notification of flight tests that it intends to undertake of any surface-to-surface ballistic missile.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed Monday to establish communication links or a hotline between the Indian Coast Guards and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency.

The MoU was signed by Director General of Pakistan Maritime Security Agency Rear Admiral Bukhtiar Mohsan and Director General of the Indian Coast Guard Vice Admiral A.K. Singh on behalf of their governments.

Since the International Maritime Boundary Line has not yet been ratified by the two countries, many fishermen from both sides stray into each other's territorial waters.

The hotline will lead to early exchange of information between the two sides regarding apprehended fishermen who inadvertently stray into each other's territories.

It will also facilitate the early intimation, which in turn would lead to an early beginning of the process of providing consular access, nationality verification and repatriation.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Singh Monday began a two-day meeting to review the progress of their second round of dialogue which comprises peace and security; Jammu and Kashmir; Siachen; Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation project; Sir Creek; terrorism and drug trafficking; economic and commercial cooperation and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields.

"Of course I attach great importance to my talks with Natwar Singh but you have to remember it takes two to tango," Kasuri told reporters Sunday, adding there should be some forward movement on the Kashmir dispute.

He said that it has now been two years that the talks between the two sides have been continuing and most of the talks have been held on schedule. "It is now important when we go into the third round in January and come up with guidelines to take the process further."

On his arrival in Islamabad on Sunday evening, Singh in a statement told the media that he was coming back to Pakistan after eight months and these frequent high-level talks were in themselves a positive movement in the bilateral relations between the two countries.

In early September, foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India met here to review the progress of the second round of the composite dialogue.

They expressed satisfaction over the positive developments during the current round of the composite dialogue and agreed on the need to facilitate air and land communications and to improve on humanitarian grounds the existing mechanism for expeditious disposal of consular issues related to prisoners, fishermen and inadvertent line crossers of either side.

The two sides also agreed that the foreign secretaries will meet in January 2006 in New Delhi to launch the third round of the composite dialogue.

Source: Xinhua