The city of Seoul announced Wednesday that it will build a monument to the suffering of women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during the war as part of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

A committee for the promotion of the project will be set up jointly with groups such as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a South Korean group supporting those women, euphemistically known as "comfort women," according to the city.

The monument will be erected by the end of the year at a location yet to be decided by the committee. The square in front of Seoul City Hall is cited as one of the possible locations.

In 2011, the Korean Council erected a monument of a girl symbolizing women forced to provide sex for Japanese military personnel in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, prompting calls by the Japanese government to remove it.

Seoul is also planning to hold an event at City Hall inviting surviving comfort women on Aug. 12, a few days ahead of the Aug. 15 anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan's rule.

Meanwhile, the South Korean group made contact with a North Korean organization in China to discuss joint action over the comfort women issue, a development that may have been made possible by the South Korean government's announcement Friday encouraging North-South exchanges between civic groups.

The Korean Council's Yun Mi Hyang said Wednesday that her group had meetings with a North Korean committee on the comfort women issue in Xian, Shaanxi Province, in China on Sunday and Monday.