VIENTIANE--Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao implied Tuesday that he would not accept Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's invitation to visit Japan until the issue of Yasukuni Shrine is settled.

Wen, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference, asked the prime minister to stop visiting the shrine, which Beijing views as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

``The difficult political problem between the two countries is that the Japanese leader visits Yasukuni Shrine,'' Chinese officials quoted Wen as saying. Wen also said he hoped Japan would deal with the Yasukuni problem with caution.

Wen's request follows a similar one by Chinese President Hu Jintao last week in Santiago, Chile. Hu told Koizumi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that his visits to Yasukuni Shrine pose the biggest obstacle to improving relations.

China has said the Yasukuni issue is the reason Beijing has refused to respond to Tokyo's requests to resume reciprocal state visits by the leaders of the two nations.

In Tuesday's meeting, Koizumi invited Wen to visit Japan in an attempt to open the way for the reciprocal visits, which have been suspended for three years. But Wen merely replied that he wanted to visit Japan ``under good conditions and a favorable environment.''

Koizumi repeated his stand that he visits the shrine to pay homage to people who lost their lives in battle and to renew his pledge that Japan will never again go to war, according to Japanese officials.

Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo enshrines Japan's war dead, including Class-A war criminals. Koizumi has made annual visits to Yasukuni since becoming prime minister in April 2001.

Wen and Koizumi also discussed the dispute over China's natural gas development project in the East China Sea and the recent intrusion by a Chinese submarine into Japanese territorial waters.

Koizumi stressed the need for the two nations to overcome these problems and to turn relations into those of cooperation, the officials said.

Wen replied that China wants to continue dialogue on these matters.

Referring to Koizumi's recently declared plan to terminate Japan's official development assistance (ODA) to China, Wen acknowledged that it has helped China's economic development and said Beijing wants to ``deal with the issue appropriately.''(IHT/Asahi: December 1,2004)