Japan has demanded that South Korea remove monuments set up at home and abroad to mark the victims of the Japanese Imperial Army's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, government sources said Sunday.The demand was made during the two countries' monthly director-general level talks launched earlier this year to resolve thorny bilateral issues, including the so-called comfort women issue. The neighbors held the fifth round of the talks last week.During the talks, the Japanese si

Nov. 30, 2014

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- A U.N. human rights resolution on North Korea could complicate Japan's efforts to resolve the issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese citizens, a U.S. expert said.Japan was one of the main sponsors of the resolution that passed through the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly last week amid keen international attention due to its call for referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court for human rights violations.The passage came as Japan and Nor

Nov. 29, 2014

South Korea's chief nuclear envoy plans to visit Russia next month to discuss the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and North Korea's nuclear program, Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday.   Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul's top negotiator on the stalled six-party talks to denuclearize the communist country, will embark on a four-day trip to Russia on Monday and meet with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on Wednesday, according to the ministry.   His visit comes as North Korea has

Nov. 27, 2014

A key Russian official on economic cooperation with South and North Korea arrived in Seoul Thursday as the three countries are pushing for a joint logistics project.  Alexander Galushka, minister for development of the Far East, plans to meet with senior South Korean officials, including Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, during his two-day stay in Seoul.  "Minister Ryoo is scheduled to meet Minister Galushka at 3 p.m. tomorrow," a unification ministry official told reporters.   They are expect

Nov. 27, 2014

A recent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un indicates that Moscow has begun considering Pyongyang as an "important source of leverage" to reassert its influence in Northeast Asia, a Chinese expert said Thursday.   Putin, under pressure from the West over his role in the crisis in Ukraine, met Choe Ryong-hae, a top official in the North's ruling Workers' Party and one of Kim's close confidantes, in the Kremlin last week and voic

Nov. 27, 2014

South Korea plans to send its first batch of 10 medical personnel to Ebola-hit Sierra Leone in December as part of global efforts to contain the deadly virus, the government said Wednesday.Seoul plans to dispatch a total of 30 medical workers in three tranches to the Ebola clinic center being built by Britain in Goderich, neighborhood of Sierra Leone‘s capital of Freetown, according to a joint statement by the foreign, health and defense ministries.The first batch of four doctors and six nurses

Nov. 26, 2014

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) ― A group of U.S. senators has introduced a resolution calling for family reunions between Korean-Americans and their long-lost relatives in North Korea, according to a diplomatic source and Congressional data Sunday.Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) submitted the “resolution encouraging reunions of Korean-Americans who were divided by the Korean War from their relatives in North Korea” to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, the source

Nov. 24, 2014

China on Monday called for an easing of tension on the Korean Peninsula, a day after North Korea's top military body warned of "catastrophic consequences" in the latest angry reaction to the international community's stepped-up censure of its human rights record.    In protest against a United Nations resolution condemning its grave human rights violations, North Korea threatened last week to conduct a new nuclear test. On Sunday, the North's omnipotent National Defense Commission issued a fresh

Nov. 24, 2014

North Korea's "diplomatic offensive" this year, including a visit by a special envoy of the North's leader Kim Jong-un to Russia, is unlikely to help Pyongyang escape isolation unless it changes course on nuclear weapons, a Chinese expert said Monday.    Zhang Liangui, a professor of Korean studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told the state-run Beijing News that Russia is also unlikely to compete with China in providing economic support to North

Nov. 24, 2014

A group of U.S. senators has introduced a resolution calling for family reunions between Korean-Americans and their long-lost relatives in North Korea, according to a diplomatic source and Congressional data Sunday.   Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Mark Warner (D-VA) submitted the "resolution encouraging reunions of Korean-Americans who were divided by the Korean War from their relatives in North Korea" to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, the source said.  The website of Congress

Nov. 24, 2014

A group of U.S. senators have introduced a resolution calling for family reunions between Korean-Americans and their long-lost relatives in North Korea, according to a diplomatic source and Congressional data Sunday.  The website of Congress also showed the resolution (S.RES.587) was introduced, but no text is currently available.   The resolution follows a similar one (H.CON.RES.91) introduced in the House of Representatives on March 6 by Reps. Charles Rangle (D-NY), John Conyers (D-MI), Sam Jo

Nov. 24, 2014