Diplomats from South Korea and Japan will meet in Seoul this week to discuss issues of mutual concern, including their disputes over wartime history and trade. 

Seoul's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the diplomatic authorities of South Korea and Japan will hold director-level talks in Seoul on Thursday.  

The ministry said that Kim Jung-han, director-general for Asia and Pacific affairs, will sit down for talks with his Japanese counterpart, Shigeki Takizaki, to discuss the pending issues. Takizaki is expected to arrive in Seoul on Wednesday evening. 

The planned talks come about three weeks after their last meeting, which took place in San Francisco when the two were accompanying their foreign ministers to trilateral talks with the United States.

Attention is being drawn on whether the two sides will present new proposals to resolve disputes over the South Korean top court's rulings that ordered Japanese firms to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor.