Jerusalem ? Israel hailed a diplomatic breakthrough Thursday with Pakistan as the first fruit of its Gaza pullout and a harbinger of warmer ties with other Muslim nations, after the first public meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries.

Yet the sudden public embrace of Israel by the world’s second-largest Muslim nation worried Palestinians, who warned that such a prize was premature as long as Israel controls Gaza’s borders, expands West Bank settlements and tightens its hold on Jerusalem.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met publicly for the first time with Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri, of Pakistan, a Muslim country that has long taken a hard line against the Jewish state, a development that both ministers linked to Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The meeting took place in the neutral site of Istanbul, Turkey.

Shalom hailed the meeting as a “historic first” and said that with the Gaza withdrawal, it was “time for all of the Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel.”

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri, left, shakes hands Thursday with his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom in Istanbul, Turkey.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the meeting a positive development, saying the United States was encouraging countries to establish relations with Israel.

However, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said that talk of formal ties with Israel was premature.

“Pakistan will not recognize Israel until the establishment of a free and independent state for the Palestinian people,” he told Pakistani media. “The holding of a meeting between Pakistani and Israeli foreign ministers does not mean that we have recognized Israel. We have taken no such decision.”

Musharraf said Pakistan would send a delegation to Jerusalem but gave no details.

Shalom said there had been secret low-level contacts between the two countries for years but that the Gaza pullout, completed last week, created an atmosphere for more public dialogue.

“This is a historic move because it could lead other Muslim, Arab countries to understand that this is the right time to do this and to move their ties with us from darkness to light,” Shalom told Israeli Army Radio. “After the Gaza pullout, the time is ripe also in the eyes of the public and it is also easier at the moment to do this than it was in the past.”