Islamabad: India and Pakistan held six informal meetings under their joint anti-terrorism mechanism between March and October but did not make these parleys public, a media report claimed today.

The News reported quoting the Pakistan Foreign Office that the meetings, held between March 6 and October 22, took place at the diplomatic level and were held on the sidelines of several meetings.

Earlier on Monday, a statement issued simultaneously by the two countries said, "the two sides reviewed the follow-up steps taken on the information shared during the first meeting of the (Anti-Terrorism Mechanism) held in Islamabad on March 6, 2007" and in the "intervening period".

Asked about the "intervening period", the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson said at least half a dozen such meetings had been held and that there could have been even more, the paper reported.

Two such meetings were held on the sidelines of the foreign secretary and home secretary-level talks, both held after March 6, it said. "The issues that were raised by both sides were not new, but ones that both countries have been pursuing and had put on the table at the first meeting in March and terrorist incidents that had followed after that," the report said.

It is believed that both sides had worked on information that had been passed on to them and exchanged new information, it said.

Source : PTI