Japan and South Korea reached a basic fisheries agreement Friday, with Tokyo offering Seoul the same quota of saury next year as this year in waters off northeastern Japan, the Fisheries Agency said.

The agreement, at a meeting in Seoul, will allow South Korean fishing boats to catch 9,000 tons of saury in Japan's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone off the Sanriku coastal area, the agency said.

This year, Japan banned South Koreans from catching saury in the area in retaliation for saury caught since August in waters surrounding four Russian islands off Hokkaido. The islands are claimed by Japan.

South Korea was expected to announce that it will stop catching saury around the four islands next year, agency sources said.

The agreement, which was to be formally concluded later in the day, will enable the two countries to start operating in each other's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone from Jan. 1, they said.