Kweon Ki-hwan, right, Korea's deputy foreign minister for multilateral and global affairs, meets Jill Hruby, under secretary for nuclear security of the U.S. Department of Energy, in this photo provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 22. Yonhap

Korea and the United States held consultations to discuss bilateral cooperation in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

At the meeting held in Seoul the previous day, Kweon Ki-hwan, the deputy foreign minister for multilateral and global affairs, and Jill Hruby, under secretary for nuclear security of the U.S. Department of Energy, stressed that nuclear cooperation is an "important pillar" of the Korea-U.S. alliance.

They also agreed to bolster ties in the supply of nuclear fuel, management of spent nuclear fuel and joint research on nuclear nonproliferation, according to the ministry. (Yonhap)