South Korea is seeking to form a panel of arbitrators in an attempt to resolve differences with Japan over compensating South Korean women forced into sexual slavery under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, local media reported Monday.

The move to form a three-person arbitration panel comes as Japan keeps mum on South Korea's repeated calls for bilateral talks on the compensation issue, which officials here considers a rebuke.

Ever since the Constitutional Court here ruled Seoul's apparent inaction on the compensation issue "unconstitutional," South Korea has been pressing Japan to compensate South Korean wartime sex slaves under Tokyo's military regime, often euphemistically called "comfort women," individually.

Some 100,000 to 200,000 Asian women, mostly South Koreans, were forced to provide sexual service to the Imperial Japanese Army during the World War II.

Japan has claimed its 1965 Treaty of Basic Relations with South Korea, which formally normalized their ties, already addressed all legal issues concerning the women.

Seoul counters that the issue is a humanitarian one concerning women's human rights, which cannot be resolved by the bilateral treaty.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak raised the issue at recent summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, but the two failed to narrow their differences.