TOKYO (AFP) - US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to issue a joint statement calling for a world without nuclear weapons when they hold talks Friday, reports said.

In the statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, they would welcome rising international momentum toward arms reduction and non-proliferation, the Yomiuri said Thursday.

In their joint effort, the United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.

The statement would be based on the UN resolution adopted in September at a Security Council summit hosted by Obama, Jiji Press said.

It would also urge North Korea to return to six-nation disarmament talks immediately and unconditionally, and Iran to come clean about its suspected atomic programme, the Yomiuri said.

Obama and Hatoyama would agree, ahead of a nuclear security summit scheduled for March in the United States, that Japan would host a preliminary meeting with Asian countries in Tokyo, the Yomiuri said.