The chief negotiator from China, the host of the nuclear crisis talks and Pyongyang's main ally, said on a visit to Japan that friction between Beijing and Tokyo would not stop them from forming a united front to press the North.

Wu Dawei, China's vice foreign minister, and Japan's chief delegate to the talks, Kenichiro Sasae, confirmed that the talks would be held as planned the week of August 29, a Japanese official said.

"They agreed to make efforts to reach an agreement on the basis of the draft handed out by China in the previous meeting," the official told reporters on customary condition of anonymity.

"The two sides agreed to keep up their cooperation in solving the problem of North Korea's nuclear program," he said.

South Korean envoy Lee Jong Seok also held talks in Tokyo on Wednesday and said that the Chinese draft should serve as a base for the upcoming talks, the Japanese official said.

The Chinese draft statement is reported to have offered North Korea a security guarantee and energy assistance in exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea came back to the bargaining table in July after more than a year of stalling but talks broke down after two weeks, apparently over the dictatorship's insistence on the right to peaceful use of atomic energy.

However, in a possible sign of flexibility, chief US negotiator Christopher Hill said Tuesday that the issue did not need to be a stumbling block.

"If you ask me, it's not exactly a show-stopper issue," Hill told reporters in Washington.

But he acknowledged that Russia and South Korea, the other two nations in the talks, differed with the United States on the issue. The Japanese official said Tokyo was in step with the United States.

Another issue believed to have complicated the talks was Japan's insistence on using the occasion to press North Korea over its kidnappings of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.

The kidnappings are an emotional issue in Japan, which says North Korea has not accounted for at least eight of the abduction victims, who were used to train the regime's spies.

The dispute has prevented Japan, which would likely fund much of any deal to end the North's nuclear program, from establishing diplomatic relations with the communist state.

The Japanese official said that Wu promised to "take appropriate measures to realize the normalization of the Japan-North Korea relationship, considering Japan's interests."

The pledge came despite a tense relationship between Japan and China, which have seen mounting disputes this year, largely over memories of Japan's bloody 1931-1945 occupation of China.

Wu, in a separate meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Tsuneo Nishida, was upbeat about Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's renewed apology for wartime atrocities, issued on the 60th anniversary of Japan's surrender.

"China attaches great importance to Koizumi's remarks on history on August 15," Wu was quoted as saying by the Japanese official briefing reporters.

"We look at the Japan-China relationship as important and hope to develop healthy and stable ties. But there are issues to overcome in the Japan-China relationship, some of which are important," he said without elaborating.

China saw major protests in April after Japan approved a nationalist textbook, and Beijing has been outraged by Koizumi's visits to a war shrine.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.