JIABAO -PM Patterson meeting with Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao during his visit to China
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BEIJING (AP):IOC PRESIDENT JACQUES Rogge met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday to discuss preparations for the Beijing Games, which have been overshadowed by protests over China's human rights record and disruptions of the Olympic torch relay.

"It was a good meeting where a range of games topics were discussed between both parties," the IOC said in a statement.

The meeting lasted about an hour, and Rogge was accompanied by two IOC officials and China's two IOC members.

The IOC said Rogge would brief his executive board today and give more details at a news conference tomorrow.

Rogge has refrained from criticising China, saying he prefers to engage in "silent diplomacy" with the Chinese.

In an interview broadcast yesterday on the VRT television network in his native Belgium, Rogge warned that pushing China too hard on Tibet and human rights would be counterproductive.

"If you know China, you know that mounting the barricades and using tough language will have the opposite effect," he said. "China will close itself off from the rest of the world, which, don't forget it, it has done for some 2,000 years."

Earlier yesterday, Rogge chaired a meeting of the executive board. Members described it as a "preparatory meeting" for the official two-day board session starting today and said the torch relay had not been discussed.

The meetings come amid heightened concern over the torch relay, which was hit by chaotic protests in London and Paris by activists opposed to China's crackdown in Tibet and other policies.

Meanwhile, the sensitivity of the Tibet issue was underlined when the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) -- which oversees the world's 205 national Olympic bodies - softened a statement that had urged China to resolve the conflict in the Himalayan region.

The group's original draft on Monday urged China to find "a fair and reasonable solution to the internal conflict that affects the Tibet region". But the final version changed the wording and dropped "the Tibet region" from the text.

In the new statement, ANOC states "its confidence that the Government of the People's Republic of China shall strive to find, through dialogue and understanding, a fair and reasonable solution to the internal conflict for the benefit of the games and the athletes".

The statement is expected to be debated today in a joint session of the IOC and ANOC executive boards.

"That is my mistake, I drafted the text," ANOC president Mario Vazquez Rana of Mexico said. "I was the author. It was not drafted by lawyers and in the first draft Tibet was mentioned. Then comments were made that this would be interfering in the internal affairs of the country.