Seoul and Tokyo will hold a director-level meeting to discuss thorny diplomatic issues, including South Korean court decisions on Japan’s wartime forced labor. 

The South Korean Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said Kim Yong-gil, its director general for Northeast Asian affairs, will meet with Kenji Kanasugi, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, in Seoul on Thursday to discuss pending bilateral issues. 

Kanasugi is expected to reiterate Tokyo’s call for formal talks with Seoul over the South Korean court rulings. 

There is speculation that he may announce the Japanese government’s new moves regarding its plan to resolve the issue through an arbitration committee or take it to the International Court of Justice(ICJ).  

Japan has claimed that a normalization treaty with South Korea in 1965 completely resolved all colonial issues between the two countries.

During the meeting, Japan may also bring up the possibility of imposing retaliatory economic measures against South Korea such as raising tariffs on South Korean imports.