Wu, the number two leader of China's ruling Communist Party, will lead a Chinese delegation on an official goodwill visit to North Korea, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said. The KCNA dispatch, monitored here, gave no date for the visit.

"A Chinese state delegation led by Wu Bangguo, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, will soon pay an official goodwill visit to the DPRK (North Korea) at the invitation of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and the Cabinet of the DPRK," the dispatch said.

KCNA did not elaborate on the date for Wu's visit to North Korea, but Seoul's Yonhap news agency quoted a source as saying it would likely take place next week.

"Chairman Wu is likely to visit North Korea on October 28 and meet with (Defense Commission) chairman Kim Jong-Il on October 30," an unnamed diplomatic source told Yonhap.

Wu's visit has long been anticipated. A South Korean cabinet minister said last month that a visit had been arranged for September.

South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said Thursday that he expected Wu and North Korean officials to discuss tensions over North Korea's nuclear drive and other bilateral issues.

"I hope there will be progress in (bringing North Korea back to) six-way talks," Jeong said in a weekly briefing after the KCNA report.

He said China "has been playing an active role" to broker a new round of multilateral nuclear negotiations with North Korea after the six-nation crisis talks ended inconclusively in Beijing in late August.

Senior officials from the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas met from August 27 to 29 to explore ways to settle the prolonged crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

The talks ended without agreement, though the parties said they would meet again. Later North Korea termed the talks "useless" citing US "hostility" against Pyongyang.

The crisis erupted in October last year when the United States disclosed North Korea had admitted to having run a clandestine uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 nuclear accord.

KCNA's announcement was seen as unusual. The isolated Stalinist state conducts diplomacy in secrecy and rarely makes a point of publicising sensitive diplomatic contacts.

WAR.WIRE