"The both parties have indicated their willingness to hold a meeting as early as next week," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a regular press conference.

"We have yet to finalise our discussions," over scheduling the meeting, he said.

He was responding to media reports which said officials from Tokyo and Pyongyang would meet in Beijing next Wednesday and Thursday.

Japanese officials were expecting to receive a status report on North Korea's re-investigation of the fate of 10 Japanese nationals who were kidnapped by North Korean agents and whom Pyongyang has said are dead, Kyodo News said.

The Beijing meeting would also be an opportunity to discuss North Korea's nuclear programs, major media said.

Hosoda's comment came a day after the Japanese cabinet approved the first food aid to North Korea in nearly four years, set to be delivered to the impoverished Stalinist state later this year.

The 125,000 tons of food is to be delivered through the World Food Program while seven million dollars' worth of medical supplies will be handled by the UN Children's Fund UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The aid package worth some 47 million dollars is the first tranche of assistance promised to the North in May during a summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang.

WAR.WIRE