SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Monday he will visit Japan on Oct. 27-29.

    "The decision on my trip to Tokyo was reached Monday morning," Ban told reporters during a luncheon meeting in downtown Seoul to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.

    "We have determined that a specific incident should not be an obstacle to mutual relations between South Korea and Japan," he was quoted by South Korean Yonhap News Agency as saying, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

    "That's why I decided to go to Japan as scheduled. There are a lot of pending bilateral issues in the political, economic, social and cultural fields," Ban said.

    Ban said his itinerary has not yet been fixed.

    Koizumi paid a homage visit to the shrine which honors 2 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted Class-A World War II criminals. It was his fifth visit there since he took office in April 2001.

    Ban's decision was reversed from his previous stance. He suggested several times last week canceling his planned visit to Tokyo as a protest to Koizumi's trip to the shrine, saying "Under the current situation, it is not appropriate for me to push to visit Japan."

    Monday afternoon, a ranking official of the South Korean Foreign Ministry Asian-Pacific Bureau said that his ministry made the "difficult" decision through "comprehensive consultations" with related government agencies including the Presidential Office.

    "We concluded that the diplomatic dialogue channel between the two countries needs to remain open despite their strained political relations," said the official in a background briefing, who asked to remain anonymous.

    Ban is to deliver the South Korean government's message on history issues directly to the Japanese government and the people there, he added.

    The official also said Ban and his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura will discuss ways of ensuring progress at the upcoming six-party talks on nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.

    According to a joint statement adopted at the fourth round of six-party nuclear talks in September, China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan agreed to hold the fifth round of the talks in early November in Beijing.

    Ban has canceled his trip to Japan in March this year, as the relations between the two neighbors worsened due to their disputes over a group of controversial islets.

    Both of the two countries claimed the islets, located in the East Sea as their own territory. Enditem