ISLAMABAD, June 25 (Reuters) - A NATO envoy held talks with senior officials in Pakistan's three-month-old government on Wednesday to deepen military and political ties with a country whose support is crucial to stabilising Afghanistan.

Ambassador James W. Pardew also delivered an invitation for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to address the North Atlantic Council in Brussels, and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is expected to visit Pakistan later this year.

"NATO recognises the central importance of Pakistan to the effort towards regional stability," Pardew told journalists in Islamabad.

"We are in Afghanistan for the long haul," he said.

Some 6,000 people were killed in Afghanistan in 2007, the deadliest year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

There are around 60,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, most of them under NATO command.

The envoy said NATO saw a need for greater technical coordination with Pakistani forces, particularly along the Afghan border.

This would reduce the risk of further incidents like one earlier this month when 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed by a U.S. airstrike during an operation against militants who had fired on U.S.-led forces from the Pakistani side of the border.

"We recognise there is an issue here and a problem, and we want to work with Pakistan to resolve it," Pardew said.

He said NATO forces, like armies everywhere, had the right to fire across the border in self-defence if they came under attack, but he stressed that NATO troops would not cross into Pakistani territory.

Military coordination centres were being established at key points along the border, including Torkham, the main crossing point on the Khyber Pass.

The NATO envoy met foreign and interior ministry officials on Wednesday, and was due to meet officials at the defence ministry, and Major General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, Director General of Military Operations, at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, on Thursday.

Pardew said Pakistani officials explained why they had been seeking peace deals with Taliban militants in tribal areas.

NATO commanders in Afghanistan had noted a sharp increase in attacks on their forces after Pakistan entered peace talks with the Taliban, and there are fears the tribal areas could become sanctuaries for militants engaged in cross-border attacks.

Pakistani officials have said the peace agreements state specifically that the militants should desist from crossing into Afghanistan to fight. (Reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore, editing by Tim Pearce)

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