It has not yet been decided when or where Taiwan and China's top cross-strait negotiators will hold their sixth meeting, although the year-end deadline for the talks is approaching, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Wednesday. 'The two sides have been trying hard' to make it possible for the biannual meeting between Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) , and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), to take place before the end of the year, said MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan. Lai denied a rumor that the new round of cross-strait talks has been set for Dec. 15 in Taipei. It was agreed in the last Chiang-Chen meeting on June 29 in Chongqing, China that the two negotiators would meet again in Taiwan before the end of the year. The two sides have also pledged to seal two agreements on medicine and health care cooperation and investment guarantees in the next round of talks. However, no action in this regard has been evident in the lead up to the next Chiang-Chen meeting. Asked about the issue, Lai said that the two sides began talks on the agreements long ago. Talks between the SEF and ARATS resumed in June 2008 after a nine-year hiatus that resulted from Beijing's protest against then Taiwan President Lee Teng- hui's definition of cross-strait relations as 'special state-to-state relations.' The stalemate in cross-strait relations began to ease in 2008 after President Ma Ying-jeou, who advocates reconciliation, came to power. 