South Korea and France will open a two-day working-level meeting in Paris Monday to discuss France's promised return of books it took away from an archive of the Chosun Dynasty in the 19th century.
In the meeting, the first of its kind ever held since July last year, France is expected to provide information about 297 books on royal rites of the Chosun Dynasty it still holds.
Han Sang-jin, President Kim Dae-jung's chief policy advisor, will head the South Korean delegation to the Paris meeting and Jacques Sallois the French delegation.
The two sides will discuss exchanging the Chosun Dynasty books held in France for the comparable old books held in South Korea
under an agreement reached between Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Jacques Chirac at their meeting last October.
South Korea is expected to select the books for exchange with the France-held Chosun Dynasty books after receiving information about the books on Chosun Dynasty's royal rites.
The Paris meeting was originally slated for last November but France's need to prepare the information about the rite books postponed it.