SEOUL-- Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will attend a state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe late next month, a government official said Thursday.

Han and National Assembly Deputy Speaker Chung Jin-suk will visit Japan to attend the funeral on Sept. 27, the official told Yonhap News Agency.

Abe was assassinated in the Japanese city of Nara earlier last month during a campaign speech.

In a meeting with reporters earlier in the day, Han also hinted at attending Abe's funeral but warned against reading too much into his visit to Japan about historical disputes between Seoul and Tokyo.

Asked whether he would visit Tokyo with solutions to a dispute over the South Korean Supreme Court's ruling ordering Japanese firms to compensate Korean victims of wartime forced labor, Han replied it would be "not in the stage" of resolving the matter during his visit.

Source: Yonhap News Agency