South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin will make a three-day visit to Japan from Monday and hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi, the government said Friday, as their countries seek to improve ties frayed by history-related disputes.

Park would be visiting Japan for the first time since he took up his post in May under the new administration of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. During his trip, he plans to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, according to sources familiar with the countries' bilateral relations.

Park and Hayashi are scheduled to hold talks in Tokyo on Monday afternoon, with Japan's Foreign Ministry saying it hopes the South Korean foreign minister's visit would help restore the countries' relations to a "healthy" state.

Their meeting would be the two nations' first foreign ministerial talks in Japan since November 2019.

Bilateral ties sunk to their lowest level in decades under former South Korean President Moon Jae In due to issues linked to Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including Koreans forced to work as "comfort women" in Japan's military brothels.

Japan maintains that issues raised by South Korea, such as compensation demands from South Koreans over wartime labor, have already been resolved, urging the neighboring country to abide by their past agreements.

Japan and South Korea are working toward a thaw in bilateral relations under Yoon, who has vowed to take a "future-oriented" approach to the bilateral relationship.

The sources have said Park is also expected to directly convey his condolences to Kishida and Hayashi over the death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, fatally shot during an election stump speech last Friday in western Japan.

During his visit to Seoul to attend Yoon's inauguration ceremony in early May, Hayashi met Park, who was then a candidate for South Korean foreign minister, and requested he visit Japan at an early date.

Park is also expected to explain the progress in the envisaged public-private body for officials and experts to discuss ways to address the wartime labor issue, following South Korean Supreme Court rulings in 2018, according to the sources.

The rulings ordered Japanese companies to pay damages to Korean plaintiffs for their forced labor, but the firms have not complied with that.

The two neighbors continued to be at odds over Seoul-controlled, Tokyo-claimed islets in the Sea of Japan, called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.

How to tackle North Korea's missile and nuclear threats is also expected on the agenda, as Pyongyang has repeatedly test-fired ballistic missiles since the start of the year, and concerns are growing that the North may carry out what would be its first nuclear test since 2017.