South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Thursday on the need to reform the format of the six- party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula to facilitate progress of the negotiations.

The agreement was made at the one-day trilateral consultation meeting among the chief nuclear negotiators from the three countries on Thursday, reported South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and Kenichiro Sasae, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania affairs bureau, held the 100-minute close-door meeting at the building of the South Korean Foreign Ministry in central Seoul.

"We shared the view that it is important to achieve substantial progress from the forthcoming talks through serious negotiations between the concerned countries," Song Min-soon said to reporters after the meeting.

"The three countries agreed on the need for developing the formula and the process of the (six-party) talks for intensive discussions and to facilitate negotiations for the sake of substantial progress," Song was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

Previously, local media reported South Korean government prefers to prolong the duration of the six-party talks. The talks had been held three rounds, all of which lasted three-days every time.

During the secret meeting between Hill and the DPRK's Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan on last Saturday, the US also agreed to hold bilateral contact with the DPRK side when the six-party talks resumes.

Source: Xinhua