TOKYO : Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will raise the thorny issue of a territorial row involving Chinese survey ships when he meets Premier Wen Jiabao this weekend, officials said Tuesday.

Aso will speak to Wen about the intrusion into waters that Tokyo considers its own when the pair meet Saturday in southwest Japan, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said.

"Prime Minister Taro Aso will raise what needs to be discussed about this case in his meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao," Nakasone told reporters.

Japan lodged an official protest Monday after the Chinese ships were spotted six kilometres (four miles) southeast of the uninhabited Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands in the East China Sea, claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan.

"There is no doubt historically and internationally that the Senkaku islands are part of our sovereign land," Nakasone said Tuesday.

"Through diplomatic channels, we have been asking China to explain the purpose (of the ships) and to prevent similar incidents," he added.

China dismissed the Japanese protest, with Beijing reiterating its own territorial claims to the area.

"Since ancient times, the Diaoyu islands have been part of Chinese territory," state media quoted foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao as saying.

"The Chinese ships were in Chinese territorial waters carrying out normal cruising activities that are beyond reproach."

Aso will host a trilateral summit with Wen and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak in southwestern Fukuoka prefecture on Saturday.

Tokyo and Beijing have been trying to repair relations, which were badly strained under former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi over memories of Japan's aggression in Asia before and during World War II.

Japan and China were also embroiled in a long-running row over the rights to lucrative gas resources in the East China Sea, but struck a landmark deal in June to jointly develop the fields.

- AFP /ls