The summit on May 22 will be held amid on-going six-nation talks between the two Koreas, Japan, the United States, China and Russia on the nuclear stand-off, provoking some fear that it could distract the process.

Koizumi said his second summit with in 20 months would help break the stalemate in bilateral rapprochement talks stalled by the kidnap and nuclear issues.

"I cannot make such a decision unless I have determined that my trip to North Korea will lead to some progress," Koizumi told reporters at his official residence.

He added that Japan had informed the United States, China and South Korea of his planned visit to the Stalinist state.

The abduction and nuclear issues will be discussed "in a comprehensive manner," the premier said, reaffirming that a package of solutions to the problems is a precondition to the establishment of diplomatic ties.

While the US embassy in Tokyo and the South Korean foreign ministry welcomed the visit, Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said Koizumi would visit to "restore the relations of confidence" between the two countries.

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, the chief US delegate to the six-nation talks, said: "The matter of Prime Minister's Koizumi visit is certainly a new one. But Japan has a variety of issues."

Speaking in Hanoi, he added the Japanese effort will be a "very solid one." "I can't imagine it would interfere in any serious way with the six-party talks."

But former Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa said in a television interview the United States may feel somewhat uneasy about the summit.

"When everybody is talking about North Korea together, it looks as if Japan joins hands with it on another subject on the side."

Keio University professor Masao Okonogi said North Korea wants to cut a deal with Japan as a way to distance it from US President George W. Bush's tough policy against Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

"While China and South Korea have already been soft, it will further loosen the encirclement around the North ahead of the US presidential election in November," the prominent Korean affairs expert said.

For Koizumi, a successful summit would be a plus for his ruling party in the run-up to upper-house elections in July, Okonogi said. "If Koizumi misses the chance now, the abduction issue will be stuck until after the US election."

A row over North Korea's nuclear program has been deadlocked since October 2002, when Washington said the Stalinist state had broken a 1994 nuclear freeze by launching a secret weapons drive.

The one-day trip will be Koizumi's second visit to Pyongyang, following a landmark summit with Kim in September 2002 at which North Korea admitted its agents had abducted at least 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tokyo believes scores of its civilians may have been kidnapped during the Cold War and wants a proper investigation.

Only five of the 13 Pyongyang admitted to abducting survived and have now returned home. Tokyo also wants the families of the five still in North Korea to be allowed to settle in Japan with the former abductees.

Japan and North Korea are planning to set up a joint working-level panel to investigate the whereabouts of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents, Kyodo reported, quoting government sources.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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