Chief negotiators of South Korea, the United States and Japan to the six-party talks aimed to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula kicked off a one-day meeting Saturday for discussion to find a breakthrough in the stalled diplomatic process.

"The three countries will analyze the outcome of Pyongyang visit by the Chinese senior official Wang Jiarui and discuss how to persuade North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) to return to the six-way talks as early as possible," South Korean Yonhap News Agency quoted a source at the South Korean Foreign Ministry as saying.

The three countries have usually met for such a strategy session to coordinate their standings during the diplomatic process aimed to find solution for the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.

The trilateral talks were held by South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, US Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill and Kenichiro Sasae, chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania bureau.

The three are scheduled to hold a briefing session on the result of the talks later Saturday.

The DPRK announced on Feb. 10 that it was suspending participation in the six-party nuclear talks indefinitely and for the first time admitted possessing nuclear arms for self-defense.

Since August 2003, China, the United States, the DPRK, Russia, South Korea and Japan have held three rounds of talks in Beijing aimed at peacefully resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang refused to attend the fourth round scheduled for last September, citing hostile US policy.

On Tuesday, the DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il was quoted as saying that the DPRK never opposed six-party talks, but some "mature conditions" are needed to continue the talks.

(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2005)