SEOUL, April 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korean and Japanese scholars will resume joint research of the history shared by the neighbors in June, two years after such research was suspended, a South Korean scholar said Friday.

The second-term South Korea-Japan joint history research committee will convene a meeting on June 23 in Japan to discuss the future path of their activities, according to the scholar involved in the South Korean side of committee.

Consisting of 17 historians from each side, the committee is led by Cho Kwang, professor of Korea University in Seoul and Yasushi Toriumi, an honorary professor of Tokyo University.

The committee will have subpanel meetings right after the plenary meeting to select items for joint history research, including Japan's forced mobilization of Asian women as sex slaves during the World War II.

South Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. The Japanese effort to whitewash its wartime atrocities in Korea has long been one of the elements contributing to strained relations between the two neighbors.

The committee, originally composed of 11 historians from each side, was launched in 2002 based on an agreement reached the previous year between their leaders.

This is cache, read story here