South Korea and China will hold working-level talks this week on the demarcation of maritime boundaries, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Monday amid a dispute over their partially overlapping exclusive economic zones.

The two-day session, the fourth of its kind, is to open in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, on Thursday.



“There will be in-depth discussions on issues related to a push for the demarcation of maritime boundaries between the two countries,” the ministry said in a press release.

Seoul plans to send an interagency team led by Bae Jong-in, director general of the ministry’s international law affairs bureau. His counterpart will be Wang Xiaodu, ambassador for Yellow Sea affairs at China’s Foreign Ministry.

The previous round of negotiations took place in Beijing in August last year.

Seoul has demanded that the EEZ be demarcated by drawing a median line. However, Beijing has argued that the coasts and the population along them must be taken into account to conduct a proportional EEZ demarcation. (Yonhap)