Japan premier to visit South Korea for talks with president

Oct 18, 2011, 5:33 GMT

Tokyo - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was to leave for Seoul Tuesday to hold talks with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak on North Korea and free trade.

On Wednesday, the two leaders were expected to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and stalled negotiations on signing a bilateral free trade agreement.

Noda was also likely to renew Japan's invitation for Lee to visit Tokyo by the end of the year when they meet on Wednesday morning.

Japan originally planned a state visit by Lee for around this autumn, but preparations have been delayed due in part to Seoul's frustration over Tokyo's muted response to the issue of compensation for Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers in World War II, Kyodo News reported.

Japan, which occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, says that the issue had been already resolved by the 1965 bilateral treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Noda was to bring with him some ancient royal archives taken by Japan from Korea during its colonial rule of the peninsula, Kyodo reported, citing unnamed government officials.

Japan agreed in November 2010 to return a total of 1,205 volumes of Korean archives, including royal records of the Joseon Dynasty, and completed necessary legal procedures to hand over them by December 10 at the latest.

The two held their first talks in September in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.