President Park Geun-hye called Wednesday for efforts to achieve unification with North Korea amid lingering tensions on the Korean Peninsula.  "Unification is not a vague dream anymore, but a historic task that we must achieve in this era," Park said in a video message to the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification on the 24th anniversary of its foundation.  Park has made similar pitches for unification in recent months, calling it a "bonanza" for South Korea as well as a blessing

April 8, 2015

President Park Geun-hye will attend a forum here next week to meet with foreign leaders on water shortage and other issues of mutual and global concern, Park's office said Wednesday.   The planned meetings come as South Korea is set to host the 7th World Water Forum, the world's largest water event, from Sunday to Friday in the two southern cities of Daegu and Gyeongju.  On Sunday, Park will have separate talks with Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon and Prince Albert II of Monaco in Daegu, N

April 8, 2015

The defense ministers of South Korea and the United States will mainly discuss ways to deter North Korean aggression when they meet in Seoul later this week, officials here said Wednesday.  South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo and his U.S. counterpart, Ashton Carter, are scheduled to hold talks Friday "to explore ways to improve joint capabilities and reinforce deterrence against North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles," a senior official here said on condition of anonymity.  Carter will

April 8, 2015

The South Korean government has approved a cross-border trip by North Korean sports officials for a preparatory meeting ahead of an international collegiate athletic competition to be held here, the event's organizers said on Wednesday.  The organizing committee for the 2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju said a delegation of four officials has received the green light from the unification ministry to visit the southern metropolitan city for the Heads of Delegation meeting, which will take place

April 8, 2015

South and North Korea opened a meeting over wages for North Korean workers at the joint industrial park in Kaesong, but failed to narrow differences, a South Korean government official said Wednesday.  The North unilaterally decided to raise wages by 5.18 percent to $74 per month starting in March for about 53,000 North Korean workers hired by South Korea's small-and medium-sized firms at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name.  On Tuesday, officials from the

April 8, 2015

South Korea is bracing for a series of key diplomatic talks with Japan and the United States next week, with trilateral security cooperation at a crucial juncture, officials and experts here said Wednesday.  The regional powers are seeking to arrange a vice ministerial meeting in Washington, a government source said.  "The three countries are in consultations to hold vice minister-level talks next week," the source said.  If held, South Korea will be represented by Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-

April 8, 2015

Japan repeated its territorial claim Tuesday over Dokdo, a pair of outcroppings in the East Sea, in its annual foreign policy report, dealing yet another blow to the already-troubled ties with South Korea. In the 2015 Diplomatic Bluebook, the Shinzo Abe administration argued that Dokdo, effectively controlled by Seoul, is Japanese territory based on historical facts and international law.  It came a day after Japan's education ministry irked South Koreans by unveiling the results of its regular

April 7, 2015

Japan was set to release its controversial diplomatic report on Tuesday that will likely contain Tokyo's repeated claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo in what could be another setback in already-troubled bilateral ties, officials said.  Japan plans to publish its 2015 Diplomatic Bluebook later in the day, in which Tokyo is widely expected to intensify its territorial claim to a set of rocky islets in the East Sea.  In last year's report, Tokyo said the islets are "clearly an inhere

April 7, 2015

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to mention the issue of the country's wartime sexual enslavement of women when he visits the United States later this month, a U.S. congressman said Monday.  Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) made the remark during a conference call with South Korean correspondents in Washington after traveling with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to South Korea and Japan, a trip that included a meeting with Abe.  "We did not discuss that with the prime minister (Abe), but

April 7, 2015

South Korean experts Monday denounced the Japanese government for politically using school textbooks as it approved texts intensifying Japan's claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo.  The Japanese education ministry approved 13 sorts of middle-school level textbooks containing Tokyo's claim that South Korea is illegally occupying Dokdo, three times more than the four that passed Tokyo's regular review in 2011.  The move is seen here as the Abe administration's attempt to bolster its

April 6, 2015

South Korea on Tuesday protested Japan's foreign policy report that renewed Tokyo's claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo.   In the 2015 Diplomatic Bluebook, released earlier in the day, the Shinzo Abe administration argued that the pair of outcroppings in the East Sea is Japanese territory based on historical facts and international law.  It came a day after Japan's education ministry irked South Koreans by unveiling the results of its regular review of textbooks for middle school

April 6, 2015

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov will visit South Korea later this week for talks with President Park Geun-hye on enhancing ties in business and other areas, Park's office said Monday.  The Turkmen leader is scheduled to arrive in the country Saturday and attend the opening ceremony of the 7th World Water Forum in the eastern city of Daegu the following day, Cheong Wa Dae said in a press release.  During the four-day state visit, the two leaders are to hold summit talks next Monday an

April 6, 2015

By Song Sang-hoU.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert has agreed to take to the podium again at a forum to be hosted by the same organization that held a seminar where he was attacked by a leftist extremist a month ago, its senior official and a source said Monday.Saenuri Party Rep. Chang Yoon-seok, who serves as chairman of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, recently met with the top U.S. envoy and requested him to give a lecture, the official said.“(Lippert) has, in pr

April 6, 2015

North Korea is showing no signs yet of any immediate ballistic missile launch, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday, amid growing concerns about the possibility of an additional provocation by the communist nation.On Friday, the North test-fired four short-range missiles presumed to be KN-02 ground-to-ship ones into the West Sea following the test-firing of a single projectile the previous day, according to Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff.  "No concrete, specific signs have been detected as I've j

April 6, 2015

A group of South Korean businessmen with factories in the Kaesong Industrial Complex will visit North Korea this week, with the two Koreas locking horns over Pyongyang's move to raise wages for its workers there, a Seoul ministry said Monday.They plan to cross the border on Tuesday morning for a one-day trip to hold an emergency meeting of the operating committee for the inter-Korean economic cooperation program, according to the unification ministry's spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol.Chung Ki-sup, wh

April 6, 2015

State-funded geological institutes of South Korea and China are hoping Japan will join their joint research of a dormant volcano in North Korea, a South Korean research institute said Monday, in what could be a rare bit of cooperation among the three nations on the Korean Peninsula's highest peak, Mt. Baekdu.Volcanologists from the three nations' geological institutes -- the Korean Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, the China Geological Survey and the Japan Geological Survey -- will

April 6, 2015

South Korea is closely watching Japan's plans to unveil the results of its review of textbooks for middle school students as they are expected to contain Tokyo's repeated claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, officials said Monday.  Later in the day, Japan is set to make public the outcome of an examination of school textbooks that will likely include Tokyo's territorial claim to Dokdo, in what could be another source of tension between the two historical rivals.  Japan has long de

April 6, 2015