S. Korean, Japanese FMs set for talks on N. Korea, bilateral ties

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan was to hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Thursday, focusing on ways to deal with North Korea's nuclear issue and bilateral relations, officials said. Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba arrived in Seoul earlier in the day for a two-day visit that is also set to include a meeting with President Lee Myung-bak. It was his first trip to Seoul since he took office last month. During the talks, Kim and Gemba "will exchange views on matters of mutual concern, including Korea-Japan relations, the North Korean nuclear issue and ways to cooperate on regional and international stages," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said. The talks will be followed by a joint press conference, Cho said. South Korea and Japan are members of the long-stalled six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs along with the North itself, the United States, Russia and China. The foreign ministers are also expected to discuss a potential visit by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to South Korea, possibly on Oct. 18-19. Noda, who also took office last month, is considering swiftly returning more than 1,200 volumes of ancient Korean royal archives that Japan took during its 1910-45 colonial rule, in a gesture to newly improve bilateral ties, officials here said. In June, Japan completed its required domestic legal process to return a total of 1,205 volumes of Korean royal documents by Dec. 10 of this year at the latest. Those documents include texts of royal protocols known as "Uigwe," all of which are being kept at the Imperial Household Agency in Tokyo. Kim is also expected to raise the issue of compensation for Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japan's World War II soldiers, officials said. Japan has admitted its wartime military used sex slaves, but refuses to directly compensate them individually, arguing that the issue was settled by a 1965 normalization treaty with South Korea.