A virtual meeting planned between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will be held as soon as next week, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters, the latter reported.

Spokespersons for the White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington declined to confirm whether the meeting would take place next week.

The two sides said they had reached an agreement in principle to hold the virtual meeting between Biden and Xi before year-end after talks in the Swiss city of Zurich last month between U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi.

Sources told Reuters last month that, given China's domestic COVID-19 restrictions and Xi's reluctance to travel, Washington was aiming for a video conference call in November.

White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean Pierre said working-level discussions were underway to confirm details, but declined to offer specifics.

Stakes for the meeting are high—Washington and Beijing have been sparring on issues from the origins of the pandemic to China's expanding nuclear arsenal—but Biden's team has so far set low expectations for specific outcomes.

Experts believe the two sides may work toward an agreement to relax curbs on visas for each other's journalists and have also said a deal to reopen consulates in Chengdu and Houston shuttered in a diplomatic dispute in 2020 could help improve the mood.

The Biden administration has said, however, that a deal on the consulates was not being discussed ahead of the meeting.