Rice, in a telephone call to her Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri Thursday, assured that the US would remain "responsive" to Pakistan's security concerns, a government statement said.

"She said that the US was mindful of the fact that Pakistan was both a key strategic ally and a major non-NATO ally," it said.

Kasuri earlier during the discussion had "recalled their past discussions on this matter and the need to maintain military balance in South Asia and not to inject new and advance weapon systems which could destabilise the security situation in the region," it said.

Pakistan last week expressed concern over the defence deal between the United States and India saying it could destabilise the strategic balance in the region.

The US and Indian defence ministers signed a 10-year agreement last week paving the way for joint weapons production, cooperation on missile defence and possible lifting of US export controls for sensitive military technologies.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them on Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.

After coming close to their fourth war the nuclear armed rivals launched a peace process in January 2004 to resolve all issues including the Kashmir dispute through dialogue.

Since then they have restored road and air travel links and people-to-people contacts besides launching a bus service across the disputed borders in Kashmir.

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