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.

The meeting was held five days after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the US made agreement to reopen the stalled six-party nuclear talks in the last week of this month.

"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.

However, Song declined to disclose further details, including what options were discussed regarding the format change. He said he would consult other participating parties based on what was discussed Thursday.

The three other participants to the six-party talks are China, the DPRK and Russia.

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.

Delegates to the Thursday's meeting also discussed the "important proposal" raised by the South Korean government, according to Soon.

"The three countries appreciated that the South Korean government's energy proposal represents a sincere effort that helps resolve the nuclear issue by starting to address DPRK's energy needs," Song said.

The proposal, made public on Tuesday, calls for providing the DPRK with 2 million kilowatts of electricity from 2008 if Pyongyang agrees to completely dismantle its nuclear programs.

(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2005)