WASHINGTON (AFP) - China said Friday that it was ready to talk to Japan over an increasingly heated maritime row, but only if Tokyo declares the islands to be disputed.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi faced questions about ties with the US ally during a visit to Washington, where he called for mutual respect in relations between the United States and a growing China.

Wang laid blame for tensions on Japan, which in September 2012 nationalized the islands, known as the Senkakus in Japanese and as the Diaoyus in Chinese.

"In spite of this, we are still ready to sit down and have a dialogue with the Japanese to work out jointly a way to manage the current situation," Wang said at the Brookings Institution.

"But first, Japan needs to recognize that there is such a dispute. The whole world knows that there is a dispute," he added.

"I believe there will be a day when the Japanese come back to the table of

dialogue."

Japan contends that China has no historical basis to claim the islands and

charges that Beijing is trying to stake a claim through military intimidation.

Japan's coast guard reported Thursday that two Chinese ships entered waters

near the islands in the latest such incursion in the potentially energy-rich

area.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meeting briefly this month with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Russia, called for an improvement in relations between Asia's two largest economies.

But the conservative prime minister has also pledged a firm line on defending sovereignty and has moved to step up officially pacifist Japan's defense spending and cooperation with the United States.

A previous Japanese government said it bought the islands from private owners to ward off a more provocative plan by outspoken nationalist Shintaro Ishihara, who then headed Tokyo's metropolitan government.