London, Aug 28 - The joint statement issued at Sharm el-Sheikh should provide the 'necessary impetus' for the resumption of the dialogue between India and Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari told British Premier Gordon Brown Friday.

Zardari made the statement during a meeting with Brown at the start of a three-day European tour marked by calls for greater financial help from the West.

Zardari's spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the visiting president told Brown that Pakistan was seriously focusing on the probe into the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

'But as agreed in the joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh, the bilateral relations between the two countries could not be held hostage to the Mumbai probe,' Babar was quoted saying by the online edition of the Pakistan newspaper, The Dawn.

A Downing Street spokesman refused to add to a British statement, which said the two leaders discussed a range of issues, including counter-terrorism, development, education and security in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.