WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will travel to Alaska this weekend and meet with his Russian counterpart to discuss North Korea"s nuclear program and other issues.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff said Thursday that Rumsfeld and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov also will probably talk about the troubled Middle East and the continued development of a military relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

Rumsfeld"s meeting with Ivanov, scheduled for Sunday, is part of a four-day trip during which he will visit privately with family members of an Alaska-based brigade that was recently ordered to extend its one-year tour in Iraq for four months to help tamp down violence in Baghdad.