TAIPEI, Jan 13 (AP) -- Taiwan has agreed to China's call for talks on allowing direct charter flights between the two rivals -- which would be the first in half a century -- for the Lunar New Year.

The Taiwan government's Mainland Affairs Council said on Thursday, a day after China's latest appeal, that it will send an airline representative and the civil aeronautics chief to discuss the issue with mainland envoys in Macau, a Chinese territory near Hong Kong, on Saturday.

Direct air links have been banned since China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. China still routinely threatens war if the self-governing, democratic island formally rejects eventual unification.

However, the two have thriving trade links and there are major Taiwanese investments in China.

Flights between the two must now stop at a third point, usually Hong Kong. Many Taiwanese business people and tourists want to end the direct-flight ban.

This year's Lunar New Year _ the busiest travel season for China and Taiwan, with many people visiting relatives across the straits -- begins Feb. 8.

"Because of the urgency of the matter," the Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, "we appeal to the mainland side to ... reconfirm the time for negotiation as soon as possible."

Both sides have recently shown more flexibility on the issue, hoping the flights will help ease simmering tensions.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian said this week that an agreement on the matter would be "an important historic moment" that would help political reconciliation.

In 2003, several charter flights run by Taiwan airlines picked up hundreds of Taiwanese from Shanghai -- but they had to stop in Hong Kong, and Taiwan barred Chinese airlines, citing security concerns.

This year, Taiwan said it would allow Chinese airlines if they pass through Hong Kong airspace, without touching down, instead of flying in a straight line across the Taiwan Strait.