The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and Japan met Monday to discuss cooperation on North Korea and its nuclear issue ahead of the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit.

Lee Do-hoon, South Korea's top nuclear negotiator, held the meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Kenji Kanasugi, in Seoul.

"There are many significant events in the near future, which are the inter-Korean summit, followed by the US-North Korea summit," Lee said at the start of the meeting.

"And in the course of this whole process, I hope that we will continue to have this kind of consultations so that we can bring about significant progress in denuclearizing North Korea," he added.

Kanasugi emphasized the importance of cooperation with relevant countries, including Japan and the US, in the runup to the planned summits with the North.

"Things have been moving very rapidly in recent months that makes our bilateral cooperation, as well as trilateral coordination with the US, all the more important," he said.

The meeting comes after the leaders of the United States and Japan met this week and exchanged views on the North's nuclear issue.

The two Koreas are set to hold a summit on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom on Friday, which will likely be followed by another summit between the US and the North either in May or early June.

Denuclearization of the North and building lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula are expected to top the agenda at the summits.

On Saturday, North Korea announced that the country will suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, located in the northern area of the reclusive country.

Seoul's foreign ministry here said in a press release later in the day that the top nuclear envoys shared a "positive" evaluation of the recent developments surrounding the Korean Peninsula, apparently pointing to the North's announcement, and promised to "actively" cooperate to make the summits with the North a success. (Yonhap)