Seoul, Washington to hold 2+2 security talks

South Korea and the United States plan to hold high-level security talks in Washington next week that will bring together the foreign and defense ministers of the two allies, diplomatic sources said Thursday.

The "two plus two" meeting has been tentatively set for Thursday next week when the two countries hold their annual defense ministers' talks, known as the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), the sources said. Final fine-tuning is under way to fix the schedule, they said.

It will be the third two plus two session for the two countries after the inaugural meeting in 2010 and the second one in 2012. Next week's meeting will involve South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Defense Minister Han Min-koo and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

During the meeting, the two sides are expected to announce a deal on delaying the planned transfer of the wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces from Washington to Seoul while reaffirming joint efforts to strengthen combined defense capabilities.