Japan, the United States and South Korea reaffirmed their commitment Thursday to closely coordinate policies toward North Korea in an effort to draw positive steps from Pyongyang for improving its relations with the three countries.

The one-day meeting of the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group was held Thursday in Tokyo prior to Tuesday's resumption of negotiations between Tokyo and Pyongyang on establishing diplomatic ties.

The delegates welcomed the resumption of Japanese-North Korean talks in Pyongyang, hoping that progress in the five-day negotiations will contribute to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting.

The group comprised Deputy Vice Minister for Foreign Policy Yukio Takeuchi, South Korean Deputy Foreign and Trade Minister Jang Jai Ryong and U.S. State Department Councilor Wendy Sherman.

The three members last met in Seoul in February following a Beijing meeting between senior U.S. and North Korean officials earlier that month.

In the meeting the three sides discussed recent talks in New York between the U.S. and North Korea, expressing hope that maintaining the Washington-Pyongyang dialogue will lead to resolving the three countries' shared concerns over North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, the statement said.

They also reviewed the current relations between the two Koreas and reaffirmed their support for the initiative announced by President Kim Dae Jung in his Berlin speech earlier this month, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the three delegations reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the 1994 framework accord between the U.S. and North Korea, under which an international energy consortium is building light-water reactors in North Korea in exchange for its abandonment of nuclear development programs.

It is believed that Thursday's meeting is a clear endorsement by the U.S. and South Korea of Japan's policy toward the upcoming normalization talks with North Korea, the first Tokyo-Pyongyang governmental encounter since late 1992.

The Japanese policy centers on securing a resolution of the alleged abduction of Japanese in the 1970s and the 1980s by North Korean agents.

Tokyo also intends to seek North Korean restraint on nuclear and missile development, refuse any demand for compensation over Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and call for dialogue between South and North Korea.