Top South Korean, U.S. and Japanese nuclear envoys will gather here early next week for discussions on ways to deal with North Korea, as it threatens to take additional provocative acts, possibly including another nuclear test.

The U.S. State Department announced Thursday that Washington's special representative for North Korea policy, Glyn Davies, will host the trilateral session four days later.

It is intended to "exchange views on a wide range of issues" related to North Korea, the department said in a press release.

"These discussions reflect the close cooperation among our three countries and our continued focus on pursuing the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner," it added.

It would provide a chance for the U.S. diplomat's first formal meeting with Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea's new special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, since Hwang was appointed to the post.

Hwang worked as Seoul's chief negotiator in talks with Washington on sharing financial burden for the stationing of American troops on the peninsula after serving as minister for political affairs at the South Korean Embassy here.

Japan will be represented by Junichi Ihara, director general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at the country's foreign ministry.

The upcoming trilateral meeting is to follow up on summit talks last month of U.S. President Barack Obama, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held in The Hague on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit. (Yonhap)