Senior officials from South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet next week to discuss strategies for a new round of six-party talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, a South Korean official was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying on Friday.

The meeting is tentatively set for Sept. 9-10 in Tokyo, the unnamed official said.

The three countries usually meet for such a strategy session ahead of the six-party talks aimed at solving the nuclear issue.

Attending the strategy session will be the top nuclear negotiators from the three countries. They are South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and Mitoji Yabunaka, a director general at Japan's Foreign Ministry, said Yonhap.

At the end of the third round nuclear talks, the related countries -- China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan -- agreed to hold the forth round of such meeting by the end of September.

(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2004)