A Japanese government mission arrived Tuesday in North Korea to monitor the distribution and use of rice donated by Tokyo since last year, Foreign Ministry officials said.
The team, originally scheduled to visit North Korea last week, is to stay until Saturday.
Shigekazu Sato, deputy director general of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and two other ministry staff are believed to have arrived in Pyongyang by plane from Beijing, the officials said.
House of Representatives lawmakers Yasuhisa Shiozaki and Makoto Taki of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are accompanying the mission.
The inspection, originally scheduled to take place from Sept. 11 to Sept. 15, was postponed at the last minute on Sept. 11 when North Korean embassy officials refused to issue visas to delegation members. No reason was given for the refusal.
Japan has been sending shipments of rice to North Korea since October, when it pledged a donation of 500,000 tons through the World Food Program.