| China, Japan discuss ways to settle dispute over East China Sea gas reserves |
TOKYO, Japan, Mar 29 (AP) -- Japan and China held talks in Tokyo on their competing claims to gas reserves in the East China Sea, officials said Thursday.
The meeting comes ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit next month and as the two countries agreed to make progress in the row over gas exploration rights.
The talks, held for the first time since negotiations in Beijing in July yielded little progress, were attended by Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and Harufumi Mochizuki, director general of Japan's Natural Resources and Energy Agency, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Chinese side was represented by Hu Zhengyue, director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department, it said.
The undersea gas fields are one of numerous territorial disputes between Japan and China in the East China Sea, ranging from where to demarcate each country's exclusive economic zone to sovereignty over a small island chain.
Both nations are eager to develop new sources of energy and have held talks to try to settle the dispute since 2004, but without any progress.
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