India hopes to renew the four-year-old 'composite dialogue' with Pakistan's new government headed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani at the earliest.

"I have expressed my desire to visit Pakistan as soon as the new government is in place and I am waiting for that," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told media persons in Washington on Tuesday.

"I hope the new government will pick up the thread from where it was left by President Pervez Musharraf and we will continue this exercise," he added.

The minister was addressing a press conference at the end of his two-day visit to the United States during which he called on President Bush and met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Mukherjee exchanged his views with the US leaders on a variety of issues, including the regional security, during which Pakistan is understood to have figured rather prominently.