China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin has urged the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) to play a positive role in the development of cross-Strait relations.

Jia called for ARATS to carry out talks based on the "1992 Consensus" with Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) to pragmatically resolve problems concerning the people of both sides.

The current priority of the talks should be given to economic issues, and then politics, he said. Efforts should be made to tackle easy problems and leave the thorny issues for later negotiation.

Jia, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) chairman and a Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee member, made the remarks when he met members at the ARATS executive meeting on Tuesday.

The ARATS had the important task of promoting the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait under a new situation, he said. The ARATS should resume talks with SEF to build mutual trust, shelve differences and seek common ground for mutual benefit.

Jia also praised the positive role the ARATS has played in strengthening ties between the two sides.

Meanwhile, State Councilor Dai Bingguo urged the ARATS and SEF to negotiate on issues including cross-Strait weekend chartered flights and mainland tourists' traveling to Taiwan once dialogue resumed.

Dai also called for the two sides to put aside differences, make substantial progress in cross-Strait relations and create conditions for solving historical issues and new problems.