“In general, both sides agreed that the torch relay can go through Taiwan. As for the details, they are under discussion,” Wang Wei, the vice president of the Beijing Games organizing committee, told reporters.

But a senior Taiwanese official later denied that an agreement had been reached.

“This is not true. Discussions are still going on,” Liu Teh-hsun, the deputy chairman of Taiwan’s policy making body on Chinese matters, the Mainland Affairs Council, told AFP.

China’s preparations for the August 2008 Olympics have been widely praised but questions remain over the torch relay due to a political impasse with Taiwan and a controversial plan to take the flame atop Mount Everest.

Each Games is launched with the lighting of a cauldron in the host city by a torch transported by runners and other means from Greece’s Mount Olympus, the symbolic home of the Olympics.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials, who must approve the 2008 torch route, are discussing the issue during meetings in Beijing.

The Chinese torch’s design and the Greece Beijing route are to be unveiled on Thursday.

“You all know that (the Taiwan leg) is a very sensitive matter and needs discussion and I will not go into details. But according to the previous discussion between the two sides, a tentative decision has been made,” Wang said.

However, Liu in Taipei said that his government’s major concern was that Beijing would put the island in China’s domestic relay route rather than in the international circuit.

“We have made it clear that Taiwan’s title and status should be fully respected if the torch relay is to be held here,” he said.

China and Taiwan split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. China considers the wealthy, democratic island a renegade province to be retaken by force if necessary.

Wang said China is sticking to plans for a leg to Everest and through Tibet.

The proposal has been attacked for safety reasons, concerns that the logistical effort would damage the environment and objections by groups opposing China’s control of Tibet.

“Allowing China to run the Olympic torch through Tibet would mean the IOC’s mark of approval for China’s military occupation of our nation,” said a statement last week by the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet.

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