SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States met in Seoul Friday to discuss issues concerning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear program.
Lee Do-hoon, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, met with visiting U.S. nuclear envoy Joseph Yun, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.
Lee and Yun represent their respective countries at the currently suspended six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
The talks, which involved South Korea, the DPRK, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, was last held in late 2008.
During the bilateral meeting, the diplomats made an in-depth discussion on ways to encourage the DPRK to accept denuclearization talks while stably managing the peninsula's situations through diplomatic efforts including sanctions and pressure, the Seoul ministry said.
They shared a view that Seoul and Washington would need to cooperate with major countries based on close U.S.-South Korea coordination, agreeing to more frequently and closely communicate and coordinate with each other to achieve a common goal of completely dismantling the DPRK's nuclear program in a peaceful manner.
The meeting followed a separate dialogue in Seoul Thursday between the South Korean diplomat and his Japanese counterpart Kenji Kanasugi.
A vice ministerial-level meeting had also been held in Seoul between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to discuss the DPRK issues ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Northeast Asia, including South Korea.
Tensions ran high on the peninsula following the DPRK's detonation on Sept. 3 of what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb. It was the sixth and most powerful nuclear test ever carried out by Pyongyang.
On Sept. 15, the DPRK test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, but there has been no additional provocation reported yet as of now.
