The Japanese and Chinese foreign ministers have held talks on a bitter row over disputed islands. The meeting came on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. The Japanese minister described the atmosphere as severe, Kyodo News agency said, while his Chinese opposite number restated Beijing's sovereignty over the islands, Xinhua news agency said. The islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are controlled by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. Tension in the region has been high since Japan's purchase of the islands from their private Japanese owner. Both Chinese and Taiwanese fishing and surveillance vessels have sailed in and out of waters around the islands - which lie in the East China Sea - in recent days. On Tuesday, Japanese and Taiwanese ships sprayed water at each other after a Taiwanese flotilla briefly entered what Japan says are its territorial waters. A Japanese foreign ministry official warned that the presence of such vessels risked a "miscalculation" or "accident", the Associated Press news agency reported.