Israel and Pakistan will decide in the coming days whether the leaders of the two countries should hold a historic summit in their quest to upgrade reations, Israeli Foreign Minister Sivan Shalom said on Friday.

Shalom met his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday, in the first-ever high-level contacts between the two countries.

The meeting, hosted in Istanbul by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was a direct result of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw last month from 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four West Bank enclaves.

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At the meeting, "we also discussed the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President Pervez Musharraf [Images]. This has not been decided, we will know in the coming days if it will happen," Shalom told reporters.

"But even if it doesn't happen, I think the relations with Pakistan have moved to a much higher level," said Shalom.

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The two foreign ministers plan to meet again in two weeks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Earlier on Friday, Ron Prosor, director-general of the Foreign Ministry, said it was still premature to say whether a Sharon-Musharraf summit would occur.

First, the sides have to examine how the Pakistani public reacts to news of the foreign ministers' meeting, he said. In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, about 300 Palestinians who belong to the Islamic Jihad militant group protested on Friday at Pakistan's decision to hold a high-level meeting with the Israelis.