Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon met his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir late on Tuesday and had a good and detailed discussion but the two diplomats have decided to meet again on Wednesday ahead of a meeting of their prime ministers set for Thursday.

The meeting, which began soon after Menon landed in this Egyptian Red Sea resort from Paris with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the 15th NAM summit, lasted about 90 minutes and the two apparently had a productive meeting, sources said.

While they decided to stay in touch and meet again on Wednesday, sources also said that Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani could issue a joint statement or even address a joint media conference, sparking hopes of some forward movement in the engagement between the two countries.

New Delhi had suspended the composite dialogue between the two countries after the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul last year and further stepped up pressure following the 26/11 attack on Mumbai by the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

The two foreign secretaries met hours after the government of Pakistan's Punjab province decided not to appeal against the decision of Pakistan's Supreme Court to free Lashkar founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed.

That development was seen as a dampner ahead of the meeting of the two foreign secretaries but both sides had sought to play it down.