South Korea, Japan close to deal on UNESCO world heritage sites

South Korea and Japan narrowed their differences Sunday in talks over Tokyo's push to win UNESCO's recognition for some facilities related to its wartime brutality, according to South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.

"(We) shared the common perception to resolve the issue smoothly through consultations and agreed to consult closely with each other...as responsible members of the World Heritage Committee," Yonhap quoted Yun as saying.

The minister was briefing the results of his three-hour talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, which he described as "amicable, frank, and constructive."

Yun's trip to Japan was the first by South Korea's top diplomat in four years. It was also his first visit there since taking office in early 2013.

It came on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between the neighboring countries.

Yun's remark indicated that Japan will accept South Korea's demand and reveal its history of wartime "slave labor" in UNESCO records.

Japan's Shinzo Abe administration is trying to have a set of Meiji Era industrial facilities registered as UNESCO world heritage sites.

Many Koreans were conscripted to work as slave laborers at some of the candidate locations during Japan's brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.

South Korea has called on Japan to drop its campaign or instead clarify the tragic historical background in UNESCO documents and on signs in front of the sites