LONDON: Pakistan welcomed the idea of resuming cooperation with the United States on counter-terrorism and Afghanistan after its parliament reviews badly strained ties, a senior US official said on Thursday.    

The official gave an upbeat assessment of talks between the US and Pakistani foreign ministers designed to help repair relations frayed by a November incident in which U.S. aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar that the United States fully respected the Pakistani parliament's need to review relations carefully but also stressed the need to resume joint work.

Clinton told Rabbani that “we had to get ready to get back into business with Pakistan and that that was particularly important (on) areas such as counter-terrorism, working together on some of the regional questions, very much to include Afghanistan”, said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The foreign minister was very welcoming of that,” the US official added as he briefed on the ministers' one-hour, 15-minute meeting in London, where Clinton is attending a conference on Somalia.