(LEAD) S. Korea, Japan to hold summit in Seoul on Oct. 19

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with results of talks, fresh quotes, details; ADDS new photo, byline; AMENDS headline; TRIMS)
By Kim Deok-hyun and Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda plans to visit South Korea later this month to hold summit talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Japan's foreign minister said Thursday.
Noda, who took office last month, will make the two-day visit to Seoul from Oct. 18 and the summit talks will take place the following day, Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba told reporters after talks in Seoul with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan.
Kim and Gemba confirmed the schedule of the planned visit by Noda to Seoul during the talks, said Gemba, who made his first trip to Seoul since he took the post last month.
"The two leaders will discuss a wide range of matters of mutual concern during the planned meeting later this month," Gemba said.
During the 90-minute talks, the two ministers comprehensively exchanged their views on matters of mutual concern, including bilateral ties, North Korea's nuclear issue and ways to cooperate on regional and international stages, Kim said.


But, the two sides apparently put aside some thorny issues in bilateral relations.
Kim said that he pressed Gemba to "sincerely accept" a proposed bilateral meeting to discuss the issue of compensation for Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japan's World War II soldiers.
In spite of Seoul's demand, Gemba reiterated Japan's stance of refusing to directly compensate them individually, arguing that the issue was settled by a 1965 normalization treaty with South Korea.
On North Korea, Kim and Gemba reaffirmed their stance to closely work together to bring Pyongyang back to the long-stalled six-nation talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
South Korea and Japan are members of the six-party talks, which have been dormant since April 2009, along with the North, the United States, Russia and China.
Ahead of the talks, Gemba paid a courtesy call to President Lee Myung-bak. "If the two nations build an unshakable relationship, they will play an important role in the Northeast Asia," Lee was quoted as saying during the meeting by his spokesman Park Jeong-ha.



The foreign ministers also discussed an early return of more than 1,200 volumes of ancient Korean royal archives that Japan took during its 1910-45 colonial rule, 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.
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