Qingdao (East China): The first encounter between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan tomorrow (Jun 21, 2004) is expected to provide the necessary political impetus to the composite dialogue process initiated by the two nuclear neighbours.

External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh has invited his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri to a "working lunch" on the sidelines of the third Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) during which the entire gamut of bilateral ties would come up for discussion.

Though it will not be a full-fledged meeting, the very fact that Singh and Kasuri are using a multilateral forum, that too in China for a bilateral meeting augurs well for Indo-Pak relations, sources said.

The meeting will be the highest-level face-to-face contact between New Delhi and Islamabad since the Manmohan Singh Government assumed power in New Delhi last month.

Singh will also meet for the first time Foreign Ministers of three key Asian powers Japan, China and South Korea tomorrow on the sidelines of the third round of Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) in the booming coastal East Chinese city.

He will also meet the Foreign Minister of Oman at the two-day ACD meeting of Foreign Ministers.

The Qingdao meeting will also mark the first of many meetings Singh and Kasuri are going to have in the next two months, official sources said.