China reportedly wants to host working group nuclear talks in Beijing next month.

A Japanese government official said China's envoy to the talks, Ning Fukui, made the proposal to Japanese officials during a meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The Chinese official also proposed holding preliminary contacts this month ahead of convening for a nuclear working group session next month.

At the previous round of high-level atomic talks, South and North Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan agreed to hold a fourth round of the six-way dialogue in September.

Lower-level working group talks were originally expected to take place in August, one month ahead of the main discussions, as had been the case in the previous round of negotiations.