Foreign Ministry officials expressed skepticism Thursday over a Japanese news report claiming talks are underway to send higher-level delegates to proposed multilateral nuclear dialogue with North Korea.

Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Wednesday that such discussions are aimed at encouraging Pyongyang to send its First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju to the talks to allow more substantive negotiations to take place.

A close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kang is considered to be one of the members of the communist state's inner circle with actual decision-making authority.

At the three-way nuclear talks held in April in Beijing, the North was represented by Ri Gun, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry's American affairs bureau.

His counterparts were James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state, and Fu Ying, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian affairs bureau.