South Korea and Japan held their second round of talks Tuesday to settle a dispute over Japan's bid to win UNESCO World Heritage status for historical industrial sites linked to wartime Korean slave labor.
  

The talks, led by Choi Jong-moon, South Korean ambassador for cultural and UNESCO affairs, and Jun Shimmi, the Japanese foreign ministry's director-general for cultural affairs, came after their first meeting on May 22 failed to produce a breakthrough.
  

South Korea is strongly against the bid as the facilities include 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.
  

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

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)