ISLAMABAD, May 24: Pakistan has welcomed the signals given by newly elected Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and his foreign minister in their statements last week to continue the peace process and dialogue and has expressed the hope that there will be "no general disruption in the calendar of meetings agreed to between the two foreign secretaries on Feb 18 this year".

When asked to comment on reports in some sections of the Indian media following the postponement of the scheduled experts' meetings of the two countries on confidence-building measures in nuclear sphere, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said at his weekly press briefing here on Monday: "We remain hopeful that there will not be any general disruption in the calendar of meetings agreed to between foreign secretaries on Feb 18, 2004."

He described the statements by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as 'very encouraging'. "They have given strong signals that they will stick to the timetable for talks and that they will cooperate with us in sustaining peace process and composite dialogue process that has started," he said.

Responding to a question, the spokesman said that no new date for the nuclear experts' meeting had yet been decided. Broadly speaking he said, the experts would discuss the nuclear issue in three parts, strategic stability, its management, stewardship in general sense and finally reduction.

These issues would be taken up one by one. It would be premature to elaborate on the likely discussion which would begin when the postponed talks are rescheduled.

In the talks, Masood Khan said, the idea was to talk about strategic stability which would include some sort of conflict resolution mechanism, strategic restraint and conventional balance. He said that the two governments were not starting nuclear talks from a scratch.

The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India had already exchanged papers in 1998 and in 1999, there was a memorandum of understanding and they had held talks in general about a nuclear doctrine and ballistic missile tests etc.

However, the spokesman said, he believed that the most important part of the composite dialogue would be between the two foreign secretaries when they would talk about Kashmir, peace and security and take up subsumed talks on nuclear CBMs. After their talks, the nuclear experts would take the matter to their foreign secretaries.

The foreign secretaries after reviewing the entire spectrum of engagements would report to their foreign ministers possibly some time in August, he said.

COMMON WEALTH: Irked by a statement of the Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon after the organization's decision last weekend to restore Pakistan's membership that the ministerial group continued "to have concern in regard to the strengthening of the democratic process in Pakistan", the spokesman said the "Secretary-General of the Commonwealth is 'too talkative' about the decision and that he was 'over-interpreting'."