Taipei  - Taiwan and China held talks Saturday to prepare for an upcoming dialogue to promote cross-strait links.

Several documents are to be drafted at the talks that are to be signet at a summit to be held in late May in Nanjing, China. It would be the fourth Taipei-Beijing dialogue since 1993 and the third since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in May.

Beijing  - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China is willing to mediate in talks over Iran's nuclear development, state media reported Saturday.

Wen said in a meeting with Parviz Davoodi, first vice president of Iran, that China respects Iran's development of a nuclear programme for non-aggressive purposes, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing  - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China is ready to offer help to ensure Pakistan's stability and development and also welcomed the international community's constructive role there, the official news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.

Wen made the comments late Friday at a meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Bo'ao Forum for Asia, a regional economic meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.

Beijing  - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Friday to discuss trade, economic cooperation and a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

There was dialogue but no sign of a resolution on the three archipelagos that both countries claim ownership to there.

Beijing  - China extended a 5-billion-dollar loan Friday to Kazakhstan to expand oil cooperation between the two countries.

The government-owned China National Petroleum Corp announced the loan to Kazakhstan's state-run KazMunaiGas National Co during a visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to China.

The two firms plan to jointly take over the large Kazakh oil company Mangistaumunaigas, which develops oil fields, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Taipei  - China's senior envoy to Taiwan, Zheng Lizhong, led a group of negotiators to the island Friday for preparatory talks to set the stage for the third cross-strait summit planned later this month.

Zheng, vice chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and his 20-member delegation were whisked to Taipei from Taoyuan International Airport amid a protest by a small group of pro-independence activists.