Jamali said Bush assured him that US would play active role to revive the India-Pakistan talks.

"The US will continue to play an important role in the revival of the Pakistan-India dialogue process, to resolve outstanding issues, including Kashmir," Jamali told reporters in Washington on Wednesday after holding talks with Bush over lunch at the White House.

"We believe dialogue alone was the only path to resolve all sensitive issues between the two Saarc neighbours, especially, the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir. I re-emphasised that Pakistan remained committed to the peace process and expressed the hope that India would reciprocate our goodwill," he claimed.

Without elaborating Bush's response on this issue, he said he would be meeting Secretary of State Colin Powell to review the situation in South Asia. "We would discuss the shift in balance in details and only then it would be possible to comment on it", he told Pakistani media after the meeting.

He said, the issue of India-Israeli defence co-operations, however, did not come up for discussion.

AFP adds: US President George W. Bush and Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali met Wednesday and touted cooperation in the war on terrorism and a mutual desire to deepen bilateral relations.

During a brief public appearance in the White House Oval Office, neither leader broached thorny issues like Kashmir or Washington's worries about attacks from Pakistan into neighboring Afghanistan by Taliban-like fighters.

Bush said a luncheon meeting would focus on "a wide range of issues: our mutual desire to fight terror, our keen desire to bring stability and peace throughout the world" and efforts to broaden commercial ties.

"We want a long, lasting friendship with United States," said Jamali, who expressed hopes Bush would give political reforms in Pakistan "a pat on the back."

Earlier, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush and his guest would discuss cross-border violence in Kashmir and efforts to stabilize Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

"They will continue to discuss cooperation in the war on terrorism, including cooperation in fighting terror on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

At the request of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the president raised that issue with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf last week when the two met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The two leaders were also to discuss "regional issues, such as Kashmir," the divided territory over which the two nuclear rivals have fought two of their three wars, said the White House spokesman.

"The president will emphasize the need for dialogue between India and Pakistan," and he and Jamali will have lunch in the White House residence, said McClellan.

After the visit, Bush aides were tight-lipped, saying only that Bush and Jamali discussed Iraq, the war on terrorism, and bilateral and regional issues -- but declining to give any details.

Earlier, Pakistan's defense secretary was quoted as saying that Washington had agreed to modernize Islamabad's fleet of F-16 fighter jets and provide fresh military hardware to aid the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives.

"In addition to providing us modern equipment, the US would also modernize and refurbish our existing fleet of F-16 aircraft," Hamid Nawaz Khan said, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

However the US made no promise to sell additional F-16s to Pakistan, which has sought such a move ever since the lifting of military sanctions which had prevented the handover of 28 F-16s it purchased in the late 1980s.

White House officials declined comment.