The two main organizations representing the Chinese mainland and Taiwan on Monday began talks to prepare for their first-ever meeting in Taiwan early next month.

The mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) met in Shenzhen to discuss the agenda for the visit by an ARATS delegation headed by chairman Chen Yunlin.

Chen said on Wednesday that ARATS would go ahead with the meeting, the first on the island since the mainland body was formed in 1991, despite the jostling received by mainland scholar and ARATS vice-chairman Zhang Mingqing last week.

(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2008)