TOKYO, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Japan's newly-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit South Korea around Oct. 7 and hold summit talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Kyodo News said Friday, quoting government sources.

    Abe held a telephone conversation with Roh on Thursday, in which they discussed and agreed to resume the summit talks at an early date, the report said.

    The summit talks are expected to be around mending bilateral ties and solving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the abduction issue, it said.

    Tokyo and Seoul have taken the establishment of Japan's new cabinet as an opportunity and made contacts to push for relation improvement. "However, as Seoul has not changed on the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine visits, it is still unpredictable if their relations will warm up again even though a summit talk could be achieved," the report said.

    Japan has strained ties with its Asian neighbors in recent years, leading to suspension of summit talks with China and South Korea. The situation was largely due to its prime minister's visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, where top war criminals are honored. Enditem