Senior government officials from South Korea, the United States and other regional powers gathered in Seoul on Wednesday to discuss ways to promote peace and cooperation in a region fraught with historical and territorial disputes.

President Park Geun-hye launched the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative in 2013 with the aim of building regional peace by first cooperating on soft issues, such as nuclear safety, disaster management and the environment.

The second government-level meeting of the NAPCI brought together Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun; Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy; Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin; Kimihiro Ishikane, director-general of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau; and Russian Ambassador-at-Large Grigory Logvinov, among others.

In his opening remarks, the South Korean deputy foreign minister said a recent series of high-profile diplomatic events are expected to give a boost to the initiative.

He cited last month's summit meeting between Park and Chinese President Xi Jinping, this month's summit talks between Park and U.S. President Barack Obama, and next week's trilateral summit among South Korea, Japan and China.

Both Obama and Xi expressed their support for the project, Kim said.

"As we all know, there are many elements of conflict in Northeast Asia, and many issues that don't appear to have a quick solution," he said. 'However, in such situations, we should talk more, work harder and actively find areas with a potential for cooperation."

Kim noted North Korea's absence from the forum.

"The NAPCI is open to North Korea, and I would like to stress once again that we plan to continue to work to increase the benefits of cooperation and have North Korea voluntarily join the initiative," he said. (Yonhap)