The working-level talks in August would be followed by senior-level talks, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

Senior diplomats at the negotiations in Beijing last month agreed to hold another round of talks in the Chinese capital by September and resume working-level meetings as soon as possible.

Countries taking part in the meetings are China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

At the June talks North Korea proposed freezing its nuclear arms program and pledged to stop building, testing and transferring atomic weapons, but only if the United States helped compensate it for the freeze.

The United States, for its part, tabled an offer that calls for a step-by-step dismantling of Pyongyang's plutonium and uranium weapons programs in return for aid and security guarantees and easing of its political and economic isolation.

Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said meanwhile Sunday that Tokyo was considering resuming bilateral talks with North Korea aimed at normalizing diplomatic ties, but she stopped short of saying when such talks would start.

"We are considering a variety of things and will resume the talks when it is appropriate," Kawaguchi told the public-run Japan Broadcasting Corp.

Normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, which started in the early 1990s, have been stalled by the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals in the Cold War era and Pyongyang's missile threat.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he seeks to normalize diplomatic ties with North Korea within a year, pushing forward his target date for diplomatic conciliation.

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