South Korea and Germany plan to launch an advisory panel on unification this week in an effort by Seoul to learn the lessons from the European country's reunification, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday.

The two sides inked a preliminary deal in September to create the panel, an idea that Berlin first raised in February. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected to make a two-day visit to Seoul starting Friday for the talks, the government said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se plans to hold talks with Steinmeier, during which they are likely to discuss how to promote cooperation between the two countries and exchange views on the divided Korean Peninsula, it added.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany. Germany's reunification took place in 1990.

In late March, South Korean President Park Geun-hye unveiled her unification proposal, known as "the Dresden declaration," which calls for Seoul to increase humanitarian assistance to North Korea and build infrastructure in the North if trust increases between the two sides.

North Korea angrily rejected the proposal, denouncing it as an attempt to absorb the communist country.

Seoul's unification ministry has been operating a similar consultative group on reunification with its counterpart in Germany to learn lessons from the European nation's experience in its unification process and internal integration.

The Korean Peninsula has been divided since the end of World War II, with the communist North and capitalist South remaining technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap)