South Korea and Japan ended another round of talks Tuesday with no breakthrough in their sparring over Japan's bid to put some historical sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list, an official here said.

Japan has applied to list 23 historical industrial facilities, including coal mines and shipyards, under the period of 1850-1910.

South Korea is strongly against the bid as it includes seven sites where nearly 60,000 Koreans were forced to work especially in the 1940s during Japan's 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

In the talks, which were held in a "businesslike" mood, South Korea delivered its position in writing, a foreign ministry official said.

"The Japanese side offered their opinion on the draft document we proposed, after which we offered our opinion," he told reporters on the condition of anonymity. "Differences remain but the two sides agreed to continue efforts to resolve the differences."

The official declined to elaborate on the details of the document, but added that another round of talks will be held, probably in Tokyo.

The two sides first met in Tokyo on May 22. In Tuesday's talks, as in the previous round, South Korea was represented by Choi Jong-moon, ambassador for cultural and UNESCO affairs, and his counterpart was Jun Shimmi, the Japanese foreign ministry's director-general for cultural affairs.

A final decision on the listing is expected to come during a meeting of the World Heritage Committee slated for June 28-July 8 in Bonn, Germany.

Both South Korea and Japan have conducted all-out diplomatic campaigns to win the sympathy of the committee's 19 other member nations. (Yonhap)