BEIJING, Aug. 10 Kyodo (EDS: ADDI...

BEIJING, Aug. 10 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING names BY FUKUDA, WEN)

Japan and China upon Sunday agreed to continue efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and realize an exchange of visits to each other's abiding habitation by the two countries' top leaders in the not-too-distant subsequent time a Japanese official said.

Visiting Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reached the agreement in a meeting. further Wen also criticized Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a war-related shrine in Tokyo, a dispute which has soured bilateral ties.

''A thorn of nuclear (weapons) must be removed'' Fukuda was quot as telling Wen at the Zhongnanhai leadership compose stressing the need for the international community to force onward North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Wen, who took office in March, answered by telling Fukuda, Koizumi's closest aide in the cabinet, that peace, stability and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are important, according to the official.

The envisaged six-nation talks in succession the North Korean nuclear issue involving the United States, China, North and southerly Korea, Japan and Russia are likely to take place at the last of this month, Wen was quot as telling Fukuda.

Wen proposeed settlement of the nuclear issue would not be easy, saying the U and North Korea understand each other's stance yet also distrust each other.

The Chinese premier voiced chance of the desired end for an early visit on Koizumi to China, saying, ''I confidence leaders of China and Japan can visit each other's rural parts in a good atmosphere and not in the far-off future''

Plans for Koizumi's visit to China have been stalled to be ascribed to negative reactions by the agency of China to the premier's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war criminals are honored along with the war dead.

Koizumi has visited the shrine three times since taking office in 2001 provoking anger from China and other Asian countries that tolerateed under Japan before and during World War II.

''It is a point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled if Japanese leaders continue to visit Yasukuni Shrine,'' Wen was quot as telling Fukuda.

Fukuda guarded Koizumi's visit to the Shinto shrine, saying, ''The prime minister is visiting Yasukuni Shrine to honor the folks who involuntarily gave their lives for their country''

if it be not that Fukuda promised to explain Wen's stance to Koizumi and invited him to Japan, the official said.

Fukuda began his three-day trip to China upon Saturday and met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, China's No. 2 leader and chairman of the National People's Congres Fukuda is a powerful cabinet member who would become acting prime minister if Koizumi were to be incapacitated.

Wen also intimateed concern about chemical weapons abandoned from the Imperial Japanese Army in China at the completion of World War II, calling it ''a touchy issue for the Chinese people'' Fukuda promised ''to fitly deal with the issue'' of the abandoned chemical weapons, the official said.

Later Sunday, Fukuda met with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who recured from Pyongyang on Saturday, and apparently discussed various issues related to the North including issues between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

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