Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh telephoned his Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri and suggested they stay in close touch for the sake of recent peace moves between the South Asian neighbors, which went to the brink of a war in 2002.

"From now onwards, the future of India-Pakistan relations would not lie in the past," the Indian foreign ministry quoted Singh as telling Kasuri.

The telephone call appeared to be aimed at putting to rest a public row that has erupted in recent days between the two ministers on how to proceed on the tentative peace process.

Singh also received Pakistan's envoy to New Delhi Aziz Ahmed Khan in what the foreign ministry said was a "special gesture."

"Both the foreign ministers agreed not to talk to each other through the media, but to talk personally in the interest of Pakistan-India relations and the ongoing peace process," a Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said.

"The Indian External Affairs Minister suggested to Foreign Minister Kasuri that they should henceforth remain in close touch with each other."

The Indian press quoted Singh as saying last week that the 1972 Shimla agreement between Pakistan and India should be the bedrock of future ties.

In the Indian media, this is seen as implicitly paving the way for maintaining the division of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir along a ceasefire line known as the Line of Control.

The comments provoked a strong reaction from Kasuri who dismissed any solution of the Kashmir issue based on the Line of Control.

The row also did not impress the former Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who relaunched the current bid for peace with Pakistan in April last year, and appeared to admonish both foreign ministries for falling out.

"Both sides should restrain from making statements," the 79-year-old Vajpayee told reporters Tuesday.

Both Islamabad and New Delhi have vowed to carry forward the tentative peace process despite Vajpayee's shock defeat in Indian elections last month.

The two sides agreed this week that their experts would meet on June 19 and 20 in New Delhi for talks on nuclear confidence-building measures, while foreign secretaries would meet there from June 27-28.