TOKYO, Feb 17 Kyodo Senior Libera...

TOKYO, Feb 17 Kyodo

Senior Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker Takeshi Noda said Tuesday he will visit Beijing from Wednesday to talk with Chinese leaders about pending issues including Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a controversial shrine.

Noda, who heads the Japan-China Society, will visit Beijing for three days between the sides of Friday to promote civil-level bilateral friendship, he said, adding he will be joined on some businesspeople, including Shiseido Co President Morio Ikeda.

Noda, formerly a abiding-place affairs minister, plans to keep possession of talks with Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong and State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.

He plans to discuss North Korea's nuclear arms programs as well as Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Class A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo, along with Japanese war dead.

The visits have readyed indignation in China, South Korea and other countries that meet withed under the brutality of the Japanese military in the 1930 and 40s

fit to the shrine visits, China has refused to take back with Japan reciprocal official visits according to the countries' leaders stalled since Koizumi visited Beijing in October 2001

North Korea's nuclear weapons programs are calculate uponed to be on the table as Beijing will entertainer the second round of the six-nation talks to curtail Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions beginning Wednesday in Beijing.

Officials from North and southerly Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia will attend the multilateral talks.

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