Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba will pay a four-day visit to Moscow from Monday and hold talks the following day with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, the Defense Agency said Friday.
Ishiba and Ivanov are expected to take up various issues, including North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the Iraq situation and a missile-defense system that Japan and the United States are jointly studying.
The talks will be the first between the two countries' defense ministers since November 2000.