Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Tuesday that he will meet his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam Sun, next week in Bangkok in the first-ever encounter of the two countries' foreign ministers.

The Tokyo-Pyongyang foreign-ministerial meeting will take place July 26 on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum.

"As a result of our informal preparations, the two sides have agreed to make efforts for an early resumption of normalizing negotiations, separate talks by our Red Cross societies and a visit to Japan by Japanese wives of North Koreans," Kono said.

During the talks in Bangkok, Japan will convey its support for the recent thaw in tensions between North and South Korea, highlighted by the inter-Korean summit last month, Kono said.

Kono said the two sides will also strive to set a specific timetable for the postponed normalization talks.

It is widely believed that the government wants to hold the two countries' 10th session of normalization negotiations as early as late August in Japan.

Asked if Japan plans to offer additional rice aid to North Korea before the negotiations take place, reportedly amounting to 150,000 tons, Kono said the government is not considering such assistance at this moment.

The Kono-Paek meeting will be brief, lasting possibly 20 minutes, Kono said.

In April, bilateral normalization talks resumed for the first time in 71/2 years, but the following month the two sides postponed the next round indefinitely.

The stumbling blocks?

Each side continues to hold strong to a demand the other refuses to consider.

Japan is demanding to know the fate of Japanese nationals believed abducted by the North, and Pyongyang is demanding an apology and compensation from Tokyo for its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.