Anchor: Top security officials of South Korea, the United States and Japan held talks in San Francisco over the weekend ahead of a summit between the U.S. and North Korea. Now, government officials and scholars from the two Koreas and the U.S. are set to hold semiofficial talks in Finland. 
Lee Bo-kyung has more.

Report: National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong returned on Tuesday from a three-way meeting with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts Herbert McMaster and Shotaro Yachi in San Francisco. 

The three sides vowed to closely cooperate for the "complete denuclearization" of North Korea and agreed on the importance of not repeating the countries' past failures in negotiations with the North. 

Chung told reporters upon his return that he had two separate meetings with McMaster, in which they agreed on the need for the upcoming summit between Washington and Pyongyang to be successful.

[Sound bite: South Korea's National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong (Korean)]
"We have agreed that the U.S.-North Korea summit must succeed not only for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula but for the entire world." 

Chung and McMaster held in-depth discussions on specific agendas to be addressed in the summit and agreed to continue close cooperation for its success.

Meanwhile, the two Koreas and the U.S. kicked off a rare "one-point-five track" meeting in Finland on Monday with a dinner hosted by the Finnish Foreign Ministry. 

The dinner participants include senior North Korean diplomat Choe Kang-il, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens and Chairman Baek Jong-chun of South Korea's Sejong Institute. 

During the two-day semiofficial talks, the three sides are expected to have in-depth discussions on the upcoming summit talks between the two Koreas, and the U.S. and North Korea.

The South Korean participants said that North Korean officials appear to trust Seoul in discussions on Korean Peninsula issues. 
Lee Bo-kyung, KBS World Radio News.

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