Top diplomats from South Korea and Japan held a phone conversation on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues.

According to Seoul's foreign ministry, Minister Cho Hyun and his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya held their first phone talks since Cho took office last week.

Referring to their bilateral ties as an axis of Seoul's pragmatic diplomacy, Cho proposed joint efforts to develop a more solid, mature and future-oriented relationship based on a mutual and friendly understanding between the people on both sides.

The Japanese minister, for his part, expressed hope that the two sides will continue to closely cooperate for a stable development of two-way ties marking the 60th anniversary of its normalization and enhancement of a trilateral security cooperation with the U.S.

The ministers agreed on the necessity to continue cooperation in various areas to respond to regional and global security environments, and to closely communicate at the ministerial level along with the shuttle diplomacy between the leaders of the two sides.