The two sides aim to "further strengthen US-ROK coordination on our shared objective of the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea, it said, using the acronym for South Korea's formal name, the Republic of Korea.

Biegun and Lee will co-chair the third session of a bilateral working group that was launched last month to help effective coordination on North Korea.

The meeting will discuss the allies' joint efforts to achieve denuclearization, "including through inter-Korean cooperation projects," the department said, in a rare recognition of Seoul's stated policy to incentivize Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program through reconciliation projects.

The US has maintained that sanctions on North Korea must remain in place until the regime fully gives up its weapons of mass destruction programs.

South Korea has sought to expand cross-border cooperation within the framework of international sanctions, with an inter-Korean railway modernization and reconnection project set to formally launch next week. (Yonhap)