South Korea and the U.S. began Monday formal talks to conduct a joint study on pyroprocessing and other methods of handling spent nuclear fuel.

The two nations made the agreement in Washington D.C. during their first formal talks on revising a bilateral civil-nuclear cooperation pact as the current one is set to expire in 2014. The South Korean delegation announced that they had concurred to discuss the joint study and that they will soon convene a meeting of technical experts to determine the scope and schedules for the joint study.

The rewriting of the bilateral nuclear pact will continue separately from the pyroprocessing study.

South Korea’s deputy foreign minister for multilateral and global affairs Cho Hyun and the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control Robert Einhorn took part in the talks. The two nations agreed to hold a second round of talks in the first half of 2011.