South Korea and Japan are set to hold working-level talks on Tuesday to discuss the enforcement of last year's agreement to settle their decades-long dispute over Tokyo's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.

The meeting will be held in Tokyo, led by Chung Byung-won, director-general of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau, and Kimihiro Ishikane, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Seoul officials said.

Topping the agenda is the implementation of a Dec. 28 deal to resolve the sexual slavery issue.

Under the landmark deal, Tokyo expressed its apology and contrition for its colonial-era atrocities, and agreed to provide 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) for a foundation to be established by Seoul to support the surviving victims, euphemistically called "comfort women."

But the deal has yet to be implemented, as some of the victims and their supporters refused to accept it. They have lambasted it as "diplomatic collusion," arguing the deal was pushed forward without sufficient consultation with them.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during the war. Only 44 South Korean victims, mostly in their late 80s, are currently known to be alive. (Yonhap)