The United States leaned on India and Pakistan yesterday to work together against terrorism and urged the South Asian rivals to seek progress as they resume peace talks next week.

The comments by US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Richard Boucher, came days before senior officials of India and Pakistan hold talks in New Delhi to push a peace process that had stalled after the July 11 Mumbai train blasts.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is due to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Riaz Mohammad Khan, on November 14 and 15 to discuss among other things, a joint system the two coun-

tries have agreed to set up to tackle terrorism.

"I hope these can be positive discussions," Boucher told a news conference after talks with Indian officials.

"What needs to be done is ... to try to achieve some progress on the issues and I am confident that both sides are getting together to try to achieve progress on issues, to try to work together against terrorism," he said.

Peace talks between the nucleararmed neighbours were launched in 2004 after intense global pressure, led by the United States, forced them to pull back from the brink of a war following an attack on Indian parliament blamed on Pakistan-based Islamist militants.

But Washington has not been publicly involved in mediating between the two countries, with India averse to international intervention in what it sees as a regional dispute.

The India-Pakistan negotiations made slow progress until New Delhi suspended talks this year after blaming a Pakistan-based Islamist militant group for the July 11 Mumbai train bombings in which at least 186 people were killed.

The two sides agreed to restart the process after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf held talks on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana in September.

The two leaders also agreed to set up a joint counter-terrorism system to

share information and follow-up on attacks in either country.

Boucher said Washington hoped that the India-Pakistan joint mechanism to tackle terrorism would prove useful.

Many Indian analysts have dismissed the mechanism saying they did not expect Islamabad to act against its own spy agency, which New Delhi blames for subversive acts across the country.

"We hope that the mechanism ... produces outcomes that are important not just for political relations for the governments but produces outcomes that can help stop the terrorism that hurts people," Boucher said.