ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: A Pakistani minister attached to Indian Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee during his stay in Islamabad for this week's Saarc summit found him a man with good sense of humour.

"He (Vajpayee) is a man with good sense of humour," finance minister Shaukat Aziz, who was minister-in-waiting with Prime Minister Vajpayee, told reporters at a press conference here on Wednesday.

"He is quite observant. He noticed all the banners and also used one of the slogans in his speech. He was very happy, (and) he left Pakistan in a good mood," Mr Aziz said.

Mr Vajpayee, who stayed at five-star Serena hotel, was happy with his hotel, the logistics and security, Mr Aziz said. "We watched the Austr-alia-India cricket match together on the television in the hotel."

Mr Aziz said Mr Vajpayee was fond of music and whenever he sat in his car his assistant turned on the compact disc player. "I asked him, 'Do you chose the CDs yourself?', and he said 'yes'." Mr Aziz said Mr Vajpayee listened to oldies from Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar.

"I gifted him CDs of Noor Jehan, Nusrat Fateh Ali, Mehdi Hasan, Ghulam Ali, Nayyara Noor, Farida Khanum and Iqbal Bano." Prime Minister Vajpayee gave Shaukat Aziz his book "21 Poems", translations of his poems in Hindi.

"He gifted me his book with his autograph on it," the minister said.About the decision to restart a dialogue made after the meeting between Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf, Mr Aziz said: "Their (Indian dele-gation's) reaction was very positive."-AFP