India will not start peace talks with Pakistan until the Mumbai attacks suspects are brought to justice, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said.

印度总理Manmohan Singh称，孟买嫌疑犯就法之前，印度不会与巴基斯坦进行和平谈判。

The two leaders said terrorism was their common threat

Mr Singh was speaking after meeting his Pakistani counterpart in Egypt.

A joint¹ statement said the two countries would co-operate to fight terrorism - and this should not be linked to wider peace talks.

The talks were suspended after the Mumbai (Bombay) attacks in which militants² killed more than 160 people.

India has accused Pakistan-based fighters from the banned militant³ group Lashkar-e-Taiba of carrying out the attacks.

Pakistan has admitted they were partly planned on its soil - and vowed⁴ to do all it can to bring the suspects to justice.

Pakistan 'happy'

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mr Singh met in Egypt, on the sidelines of a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

It was third high-level meeting between the two nuclear-armed neighbours since the Mumbai attacks last November, which brought an abrupt⁵ halt to peace talks.

"Both leaders affirmed their resolve（决心，坚决） to fight terrorism and co-operate with each other to this end," the joint statement from the talks said.

"Pakistan has provided an updated status dossier（档案材料） on the investigations⁶ of the Mumbai attacks," the statement said.

The two leaders also agreed to "share real-time, credible⁷ and actionable（可起诉的，可控告的） information on any future terrorist threat".

Last week Pakistan said the trial of five men suspected of involvement in the attack on Mumbai's Taj Hotel was likely to start this week.

The prime ministers' joint statement said action on terrorism "should not be linked to the composite dialogue process" - which includes talks on the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says many in India were likely to see this as a major climb-down in Delhi's stance.

But later, Mr Singh told a news conference: "Composite dialogue cannot begin unless and until terrorist heads which shook Mumbai are properly accounted for, [and] perpetrators of these heinous⁸ crimes（滔天罪行） are brought to book."

Mr Gilani told the BBC he was confident things were moving in the right direction - and he was happy that the Pakistanis had supplied new intelligence of interest to the Indians.