The meeting is expected to deal with preparations for a second round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions in mid-December, which will also include China and Russia.

The meeting will be held on Thursday involving chief delegates to the six-way talks -- Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck and US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly.

They are expected to discuss a US-proposed written security guarantee to Pyongyang which will be made in exchange for North Korea's promise to give up its nuclear weapons programme, news reports said.

In the first round of the nuclear crisis talks held in Beijing in August, the six nations agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue but they failed to set a date for the next round.

The North Korean nuclear stand-off erupted in October last year when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to running a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of a 1994 accord with the United States.

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