South Korea and Japan will hold a meeting next month to discuss follow-up measures related to a foundation launched to help Korean women sexually abused by Japan during its colonial rule of the peninsula in the first half of the 20th century, government sources said Friday.

The meeting is likely to be held in the second week of August, and it will mark the first time for both sides to get together after the foundation kicked off work on Thursday in Seoul.  

The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation came into being under the deal reached in December to resolve the comfort women issue once and for all. Tokyo promised to contribute 1 billion yen ($9.5 million) to the foundation.

Chung Byung-won, director-general of the South Korean foreign ministry's Northeast Asian affairs bureau, will meet with his Japanese counterpart Kenji Kanasugi in Seoul, according to the sources.

They will likely discuss when and how to use the promised money for the foundation, observers said.

Earlier, a South Korean diplomat told reporters that the money will be delivered immediately after the launch of the foundation but it has yet to be transferred, reportedly due to some lingering differences between the two countries.

The Dec. 28 was hailed by the international community as a step in the right direction given that the comfort women issue has been a long-standing obstacle to ties between the two neighboring countries.

But it has been drawing flak from some victims and civic groups who have accused the government of striking a deal lacking Japan's acknowledgment of its legal responsibility. They also said the agreement was reached without prior consultation with the victims.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during World War II. Forty South Korean victims, mostly in their late 80s, are currently known to be alive.

The launch of the foundation, meanwhile, was marred by protest from vocal support groups for comfort women.

Dozens of members from the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and other groups staged a rally in front of the foundation's office building while the opening event was under way.

Kim Tae-hyun, chairwoman of the foundation, was also attacked by an unidentified man who sprayed pepper spray in her face when she was leaving the building after a press conference. (Yonhap)