Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Liberal Party leader Ichiro Ozawa met Monday and confirmed they will "make efforts till the last minute to realize their policy agreement."

During their 20-minute talk, however, the two leaders made no concrete progress over a proposed reduction in the number of seats in the Lower House, according to officials of the two parties.

"I am aware ... that the situation is critical," Obuchi told reporters at his official residence, ahead of his talks with Ozawa. "I will do my utmost toward resolving the issue."

Obuchi was referring to a dispute over a plan to eliminate 50 out of 200 proportional representation seats in the 500-member Lower House. The plan is threatening the Liberal Democratic Party-Liberal Party coalition.

Speaking at a news conference the same day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka called for completing the task of bringing New Komeito into the coalition, while maintaining the alliance with the Liberal Party. New Komeito strongly opposes the seat-cutting bill.

In a meeting late Sunday with Nonaka and other senior LDP members, Ozawa reiterated his position that the seat-cutting bill should be passed by the Lower House during the current Diet session, which ends Friday.

The bill is part of a policy agreement reached between the two parties before they launched their coalition in January. Ozawa has repeatedly threatened to bolt from the bloc if the LDP does not keep its word.

The LDP is reluctant to enter into full-scale Diet debate on the bill because of strong opposition from New Komeito, which plans to join the LDP-led coalition once a policy agreement is reached.

New Komeito, more than half of whose Lower House members were elected through proportional representation, has proposed cutting the same number of seats in the Lower House by introducing multiseat constituencies.

New Komeito, which declared last month that it would join the LDP-led coalition on condition that it and the LDP can reach agreement on basic policy matters, has said further progress of the bill to cut proportional seats would affect its coalition negotiations with the LDP.