Myanmar’s foreign minister will visit South Korea this week as the two nations seek to improve ties after the Southeast Asian country’s emergence from international isolation with sweeping democratic reforms, officials said Tuesday.

Wunna Maung Lwin will arrive in Seoul on Thursday for a four-day visit and hold talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on Friday, ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said.

The ministers “plan to discuss ways to promote bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, development of resources, infrastructure and people-to-people exchange,” Cho said.

During the visit, the Myanmarese minister will also meet with Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and visit the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, the spokesman said.

President Lee Myung-bak made a landmark visit to Myanmar in May and held summit talks with President Thein Sein.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, severed ties with North Korea in 1983 after Pyongyang’s bombing of a South Korean presidential delegation on its visit to the Southeast Asian nation. Relations were restored in 2007. (Yonhap News)