TOKYO  Responding to recent provocations by North Korea, Japan’s defense minister will soon visit Seoul with several proposals aimed at strengthening military ties despite South Korea’s lingering bitterness over Japan’s colonial past, Japanese news media reported on Tuesday.

During the trip next week, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa will propose that the two Asian neighbors sign separate agreements to cooperate in supplying each other’s armed forces during peacekeeping and other international operations, and to facilitate sharing of delicate military information, the reports said. They also said he would propose that Japan and South Korea increase military contacts by scheduling regular high-level meetings between defense officials.

One Japanese newspaper, the right-leaning Yomiuri Shimbun, also said the nations were working on a more sweeping, joint declaration on military cooperation, though a South Korean Defense Ministry official denied that. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the other agreements had been discussed with the Japanese, but emphasized that these were about low-level cooperation.

In Tokyo, a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry refused to comment on the reports or the agenda of the trip. However, the fact that the anonymously sourced reports all carried the same information suggested that they had come from an official background briefing.