YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday met Pakistan's leader for the first time since the deadly Mumbai attacks, bluntly declaring that Pakistani soil must not be used for terrorism.

"My mandate is to tell you that Pakistani territory should not be used for terrorism against India," the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Singh as telling President Asif Ali Zardari.

PTI said the pair had earlier shaken hands but after Singh's comments Zardari immediately asked journalists to be escorted from the room so the meeting could be continued in private.

The leaders were meeting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security body where both India and Pakistan are observers.

India has blamed last year's Mumbai attacks -- which left 166 people dead -- on Pakistan-based militants linked to the country's powerful spy service and has frozen the four-year-old peace dialogue with its nuclear-armed neighbour and arch-rival.

PTI reported that Singh was also understood to have conveyed India's "unhappiness" over Pakistani inaction against terrorism aimed at India.

New Delhi blames a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), for planning and launching the November assault in which 10 gunmen targeted multiple locations in Mumbai during a three-day killing spree.

Singh also expressed disappointment over the release of the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed suspected by India of being among the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks, PTI said.

A Pakistan court earlier this month ordered the release of Hafiz, a founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and whose Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a charity blacklisted in the West as a terror group.

Pakistan put Hafiz and three of his co-leaders under house arrest in early December and publicly shut offices of the charity.

Indian prosecutors say they have evidence that "undoubtedly and conclusively" links the Mumbai attacks to Pakistan.

The last high-level India-Pakistan meeting took place in September when Singh met Zardari on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Pakistan meanwhile played down Singh's stark warning and urged a resumption of dialogue between the two sides.

"The most sensible thing to do now would be to resume dialogue as soon as possible," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, according to PTI.

"It is in our mutual interest. Both countries stand to gain by resumption of dialogue. Pakistan feels it is an useful exercise."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition in 1947, two of them over the divided and disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The arch-foes have observer status at the SCO, which groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Singh had said in his speech to the summit earlier that countries had to cooperate to fight terrorism.

"No country is immune (from terrorism). It is imperative that we genuinely cooperate with one another and on a global scale to resolutely defeat international terrorism," he said.

The European Union and Pakistan hold their first summit Wednesday, with the fight against terrorism and deepening trade links topping the agenda, according to a draft text.

In a joint declaration prepared for the summit, the two agree to launch "strategic dialogue" on "development, education, science and technology, security, counter-terrorism, strengthening democracy, human rights and enhancing trade."