Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper says Tokyo plans to provide 250,000 tons of rice to North Korea if progress is made in the Japanese abductee issue.

The daily said Monday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would offer the rice aid if North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to Tokyo's call to return the family members of five former abductees who were returned to Japan in October 2002.

Japanese reports said Koizumi is scheduled to make a one-day visit to the communist state this Saturday. Tokyo also wants a detailed accounting on the fate of other Japanese citizens, including eight who Pyongyang says already died after being kidnapped by its agents.

In the event Tokyo sends the rice aid, it would take the form of responding to an appeal for aid for the impoverished nation to be issued by the U-N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Koizumi's trip to Pyongyang would be his second following his first visit in September 2002.