ISLAMABAD, Feb 19: Pakistan and India agreed during the Feb 16-18 talks in Islamabad to hold technical-level discussions on nuclear confidence building measures with a suggestion for a nuclear restraint regime between the two countries , a foreign ministry official said here on Thursday.

Speaking at a seminar, foreign office spokesman Masood Khan said he did not think India would reject the strategic nuclear restraint regime proposal out of hand.

"In fact, there is a possibility they would show interest in the subject because they do realize the dangers involved if there is no restraint regime between the two countries at all," he said.

Emphasizing the importance of such a regime, Mr Khan said that accidental and unauthorized use of nuclear weapons presented a scary scenario for the two countries.

The spokesman said in the beginning of his speech that some of his comments would be in personal capacity and some in official, but the course of his presentation did not specify which of his comments and remarks did not reflect the position of his ministry.

On the nuclear issue, Mr Khan said the two countries had some history of discussing a restraint regime and making some progress. About the future talks, Mr Khan said it was premature to comment what the two foreign secretaries would discuss but "we have conventional wisdom behind us".

"When they meet they would go into substance of the issue. Their conversations of the issues would not be limited to public statements. They would not stick to their stated positions. At this point, let us say there would be a positive evolution of this composite dialogue process."

Referring to the Lahore declaration, he said there was a memorandum of understanding and the foreign secretaries of the two countries had talked about nuclear-capable missile, CBMs and also conventional balance with the objective to avoid conflict, adding, "we must build upon that".

The spokesman said that during the three clusters of scheduled talks in the calendar, the most important cluster was with the foreign secretaries who would deal with peace and security, including CBMs and Kashmir as a separate cluster.

Talking about Kashmir, Mr Khan said, it was Pakistan's commitment that the Kashmiri people would have to be and would be associated with the peace process at an appropriate time.

"The people of Pakistan, India and Kashmiris want peace and resolution of their disputes but it is easier said than done. We have to negotiate in a manner that we find a common denominator that satisfies India, Pakistan, and the Kashmiris. We have to find that magic formula."

During the talks, Mr Khan said, there was a new chemistry between the delegations of India and Pakistan and the behaviour and conduct during the negotiations of the interlocutors was constructive.

He said the momentum of the CBMs announced by Pakistan and India last year had created an enabling environment for the present talks. There were frustrations, and though CBMs were being announced, there was no engagement.

What we needed at that time was political intervention and statesmanship and vision. We knew our position. We knew where India stood, where Pakistan stood. We had to move beyond deadlock."

He said the operative part of current talks had a "strong, sincere expressions of intent that both sides would sustain this process." Former diplomat Akram Zaki, Air Marshal (retd) Ayaz Ahmed Khan and Lt-Gen (retd) Talat Masood were prominent among other speakers.