Iraq will also be on the menu when Bush and Koizumi will have an hour-long working lunch on the sidelines of the annual summit of seven leading wealthy nations and Russia at this posh resort, US officials said Monday.

The two leaders, who may discuss the Japanese prime minister's second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang last month, were expected to speak to reporters before the meeting.

Koizumi has said he hopes to use the bilateral exchange to raise the plight of an American, a former US Army sergeant listed as a deserter, stuck in North Korea.

Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, has refused to leave North Korea to join his wife, Hitomi Soga, 45, in Japan for fear of being handed over to the US under an extradition treaty for court martial.

Kim agreed at his summit with Koizumi to let the five children of two other kidnapped Japanese couples go to Japan. The two other couples had returned to Japan with Soga in 2002.

But the United States is unlikely to drop charges against Jenkins.

"I intend to touch on that, but this is a delicate issue," Koizumi said recently, without elaborating.

WAR.WIRE