South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on Monday stressed the importance of promoting "correct history" at the United Nations.

Kim said he discussed history issues in a bilateral meeting here with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi. The ministers are visiting New York to attend the 67th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

"We agreed with the need to publicize history, I mean correct history, on the U.N. stage," Kim told South Korean reporters.

South Korea is locked in bitter disputes with Japan over their shared history.

Korean people believe Japan has yet to offer an appropriate apology for its brutal colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945.

The enforced sex slavery by Japanese troops during World War II is a symbol of such atrocities. Victimized women are euphemistically called "comfort women."

Tokyo's continued claim to Dokdo, a set of Seoul-controlled volcanic outcroppings in the East Sea, is also a legacy of Japan's imperialistic past.

Japan is also embroiled in simmering territorial disputes with China.

The South Korean minister said he has yet to decide whether to comment directly on the comfort women issue when he delivers a keynote speech on Sept. 28.

It will be dependent on the contents of a speech by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda two days earlier, he added. (Yonhap News)