ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: Pakistan on Tuesday dispelled an impression that it had invited Israeli Agriculture Minister Israel Katz to visit Pakistan as part of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) delegation.

Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan told APP that there was a proposal by the FAO director-general to send a delegation to review Pakistan's food security programme but Islamabad expressed its inability to host the visit in March due to certain reasons.

He said the government or any of its institution had not invited the Israeli agriculture minister to Pakistan. "We do not recognize the state of Israel, how can we allow their minister to attend a conference being held in Pakistan," Food and Agriculture Minister Yar Mohammad Rind told a news TV channel.

"Even if the UN recommends his (Mr Katz's) participation, we will explain to him our position on Israel," the minister said. Earlier, Mr Katz in an interview to Military Radio Israel said he would be visiting Pakistan in March as part of the FAO delegation.

Following the world food summit declaration, Pakistan had initiated a special food security programme. The FAO took interest in this programme and its director-general wrote a letter to Pakistan on Dec 11, 2003, saying that a delegation wanted to visit Pakistan to review the programme.

The FAO sent no details of the members of the delegation with its proposal. Pakistan examined the proposal and informed the director-general on Thursday that because of technical and financial reasons it would not be possible to host the visit in March.

Official sources are of the view that probably the FAO director-general might have sent a general circular to all its member states, including Israel, leading to a misperception on part of the Israeli minister that he would go to Pakistan.

The sources said Pakistan was trying to ascertain the facts from the FAO director-general. The foreign office spokesman also denied a report in Israeli newspaper Maariv on Tuesday that a meeting between President Pervez Musharraf and Israeli foreign minister had been planned or arranged at Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum this week.

SECRET TALKS: The Maariv report also said that Israel and Pakistan had been holding secret discussions for several weeks to "re-establish" relations between the two countries. The first connection would be regarding economic interests, it said.-Agencies