South Korea's Yu Myung Hwan will make a four-day visit to Japan from Thursday at the invitation of his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Komura, officials at the foreign ministry in Seoul said.

The two ministers will prepare for the April 20-21 summit between South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Tokyo and discuss other issues including North Korea, they said.

Mr Lee, who took office last month, has called for closer ties between Seoul and Tokyo, and an end to their feud over Japan's past occupation of the Korean peninsula.

Six-party talks - which group the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia - on dismantling the North's atomic programmes are stalled by disputes over Pyongyang's promised declaration of its atomic activities.

During his stay in Japan, Mr Yu will also attend a ministerial meeting to prepare for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July, the officials said. -- AFP