ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: India signalled on Friday it was ready to set aside security concerns and import natural gas through Pakistan if relations improved between neighbours.

Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha told a regional business conference that Pakistan could be a vital bridge between Central Asia, the Gulf and energy-hungry India.

"If Pakistan can find within itself the strength and wisdom to change its current approach towards India, there are immense benefits that it can derive as a transit route for the movement of energy, goods and people," Sinha said in a speech to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

India has been lukewarm to proposals of receiving gas via Pakistan and has opted for costlier liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports because it fears such a pipeline could be held hostage to its long-running tensions with Pakistan.

But on Friday as the long-time foes agreed to set up a South Asia free trade area, Sinha said only closer economic integration could help end decades of mistrust. "They can help resolve our differences in a way that old hostility or new distrust never can."

Sinha said he had suggested to his fellow foreign ministers from the seven-nation Saarc grouping that the target for an ambitious South Asian economic union should be advanced to 2015 from 2020, and they had agreed to examine the idea.

A pipeline across Pakistan is the cheapest option to import gas into India, which produces only 65 million cubic metres or 2.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, enough to meet barely half the domestic demand.

There are two main routes under consideration by the countries of the region, one is from Iran across Pakistan to India and the other from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

India is also talking to Iran to buy LNG instead of piped natural gas as it is a safer option despite the higher cost involved in cooling the gas to liquefy it, transporting it in special vessels, and converting it into gas.-Reuters