Powell will "hold discussions with senior officials in the three countries on bilateral matters, regional security and stability, and issues such as the global war on terrorism, Iraq, North Korea and the six-party talks," it said.

Powell is to leave Washington for the three-nation tour on Friday, a week after senior US and Chinese diplomats failed here to make headway in getting those talks back on track, the department said in a statement.

The United States, China, Japan and South Korea, are four of the six nations, along with Russia and North Korea, involved in the six-party talks, aimed at de-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

But Pyongyang has thus far refused to attend a third round of the Beijing-hosted talks -- which were to have been held last month -- despite repeated calls from the other parties.

In Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul, Powell will be exploring possibilities for convincing Pyongyang to resume the process.

But on Friday in Washington, China's special envoy for North Korean affairs, Ning Fukui, met with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and other senior US diplomats and found little reason for optimism.

"Unfortunately, as far as we know, the situation remains stalled, with North Korea not prepared to live up to its commitments to come back to talks," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said after the meeting.

North Korea had refused to attend the fourth round of the six-party talks last month, citing Washington's "hostile" policy towards it and South Korea's recently disclosed nuclear experiments.

There is widespread speculation that the North Koreans, who have long demanded one-on-one talks with the United States. are waiting for the November 2 US presidential election to determine their next course of action.

US President George W. Bush insists that he will not enter into a bilateral dialogue with North Korea, citing Pyongyang's violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework accord with Washington.

But Bush's Democratic challenger John Kerry has lambasted Bush for refusing to speak directly with North Korea as it continues to make nuclear weapons and has vowed to engage the Stalinist nation should he win the presidency.

In addition to talks on North Korea, Powell's North Asian tour will also include discussions of the deteriorating situation in Iraq, efforts to fight terrorism and US bilateral ties with the three countries.

Japan this week hosted an international donors conference on Iraq at which the interim Iraqi government appealed for countries to make good on earlier pledges to fund reconstruction projects there.

In Tokyo, Powell's first stop, the secretary will also focus on renewed calls for the United States to reduce its military presence on the southern island of Okinawa, home to about 65 percent of the 40,500 US troops in Japan.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has insisted on a downscaling in Okinawa and on Saturday, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said Tokyo had proposed relocating some 2,000 US marines in Okinawa to the northern city of Hokkaido.

The deployment of troops will also be on Powell's agenda in Seoul where earlier this month the two allies agreed to delay the planned withdrawal of a third of the 33,900 US soldiers in South Korea.

Under the deal, the United States will move ahead with plans to pull out 12,500 of its troops, but the deadline has been pushed back to 2008, three years later than originally scheduled.

In addition, Washington agreed to leave attack helicopters and other crucial equipment in the south to deter a potential North Korean attack.

The deal eased growing jitters among South Koreans about a possible security gap from the abrupt withdrawal of US soldiers, who have played a key role in deterring any attack from North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.

In Beijing, Powell likely to hear complaints from Chinese officials about US policy toward Taiwan, the major thorn in Sino-US relations for nearly 30 years.

The United States has sprung to the defense of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's call last week for a dialogue to resolve the cross-straits problem with China even though it has been angrily rejected by Beijing.

The United States is Taiwan's leading arms supplier, even though it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

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