The top diplomats of South Korea and Japan agreed to strengthen cooperation on North Korean issues, while expressing lingering differences in historical matters, including compensation for forced labor victims during Japan’s colonial rule of the peninsula and South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and his Japanese counterpart, Yoko Kamikawa, met for the first time Wednesday for a 30-minute meeting, starting at 11:10 a.m. local time, on the

Foreign Affairs Feb. 22, 2024

The Yoon Suk Yeol government will officially designate July 14 as a day to commemorate North Korean defectors, symbolically coinciding with the day when the law ensuring support for their resettlement in South Korean society took effect in 1997. South Korean Unification Minister Kim Young-ho announced the official designation on Wednesday while attending the inauguration ceremony of the Special Committee for Accompanying Residents with Backgrounds from North Korea established under the auspices

North Korea Feb. 21, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin presented North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with a gift of a Russia-produced car exclusively "for his personal use," North Korean state media reported Tuesday. The South Korean government decried the gift as a breach of UN Security Council resolutions. The Rodong Sinmun, which primarily targets internal audiences as North Korea's most widely circulated newspaper, featured the news on its front page without disclosing specifics about the vehicle gifte

North Korea Feb. 20, 2024

The human rights situation in North Korea has remained the worst in the world, even 10 years after the UN released its first report unveiling systematic human rights abuses and violations by the North Korean regime, the US special envoy for North Korean human rights said Monday. One defector, however, asserted that North Korean people have started to adopt the notion of "human rights violations," attributing this shift to the international community's concerted efforts to shed lig

North Korea Feb. 19, 2024

Former US President Donald Trump's outspoken criticism of NATO and its collective defense resonates deeply with implications for South Korea's security, a cornerstone being the US commitment to defense, especially amid escalating North Korean threats. After Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, intensified his rhetoric on Saturday, the possibility of his return to power raised concerns about the revival of his transactional approach to the Sou

Foreign Affairs Feb. 15, 2024

The surprise establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba marks the culmination of Seoul's diplomatic endeavors with socialist countries that have historically maintained friendly ties with North Korea, according to the presidential office on Thursday. South Korea and Cuba on Wednesday evening officially announced that they had forged diplomatic relations, fulfilling Seoul's decadeslong aspiration to engage with the socialist country. Seoul believes the move deliv

Foreign Affairs Feb. 15, 2024

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has postponed his scheduled overseas trip to Germany and Denmark, according to Yoon's office on Wednesday. The presidential office had initially prepared for a week-long trip to the two European countries beginning on Sunday. Detailed schedules were being coordinated with each country. However, after careful consideration, the presidential office has reportedly decided to postpone the trip. Yoon's office, however, did not provide further details or

Foreign Affairs Feb. 14, 2024

South Korea is "open-minded" about expanding the existing bilateral nuclear consultative group with the United States to a trilateral framework including Japan, a former South Korean national security advisor said Monday. Kim Sung-han, President Yoon Suk Yeol's former top national security advisor from 2022 to 2023, acknowledged that during his tenure, he had the opportunity to discuss the idea of the expansion of the framework with his Japanese counterpart. The Nuclear Consultati

Foreign Affairs Feb. 13, 2024

South Korea's newly appointed Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul received an invitation to visit China from his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, during their first phone call Tuesday, according to Seoul. Beijing concurrently revealed that Wang expressed expectations for South Korea to adopt a "positive, objective and friendly policy" toward China. Cho and Wang engaged in a 50-minute phone conversation, discussing matters of mutual interest, including high-level exchanges, supply chain coop

Foreign Affairs Feb. 7, 2024

Discontent among North Koreans toward the hereditary succession of the country's leadership has grown over time, coupled with a pervasive negative public assessment of the performance of leader Kim Jong-un, according to a report from the Unification Ministry in Seoul. South Korea's Unification Ministry unveiled a 280-page report comprehensively detailing the reality of economic and social conditions in North Korea. This first-ever report of its kind is based on in-depth interviews with

North Korea Feb. 6, 2024

Over 60 percent of South Koreans are skeptical that Washington would use its nuclear weapons in the event of a Korean Peninsula contingency, according to a survey conducted by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies on Monday. The research institute in Seoul, named after SK Group founder Chey Jong-hyun, released the findings of an in-person interview survey conducted on 1,043 Koreans from Dec. 15 last year to Jan. 10 this year, in collaboration with Gallup Korea. According to the survey results,

North Korea Feb. 5, 2024

Eight countries including South Korea, together with the European Union, joined forces on Thursday to denounce the atrocities and human rights violations committed by Myanmar's junta in a joint statement on Thursday. A joint statement was issued on the same day Myanmar's military seized power in a dawn coup on Feb. 1, 2021, and overthrew the democratically elected government. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the military regime’s ongoing atrocities and human right

Foreign Affairs Feb. 1, 2024

South Korea aims to convey a more specific message to the North Korean leadership this year, emphasizing that provocations will only strengthen the South's alignment with the United States and Japan, the country's Ambassador to the United States Cho Hyun-dong said Tuesday. "North Korea has been persistently conducting unprecedented threats and provocations against us," he said. "We will never be swayed or (give in) to North Korea's provocations and threats. Instead,

Foreign Affairs Jan. 31, 2024

North Korea has shuttered two more diplomatic missions in Hong Kong and Libya, bringing down the global total from 46 to 44, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The additional shutdown, part of a series of such moves, followed the Foreign Ministry's earlier confirmation of Pyongyang's closure of embassies in seven countries: Guinea, Nepal, Bangladesh, Senegal, Spain, Angola, and Uganda, as of early December. The Hong Kong government's official website has officially

North Korea Jan. 30, 2024

The South Korean government on Tuesday urged Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa to "immediately retract" her claim of territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, which are South Korea's easternmost sovereign islets, in her parliamentary speech. "The government strongly protests against the repeated unjust territorial claims by the Japanese government regarding Dokdo, which is undeniably our distinct territory —historically, geographically, and under international law,"

Foreign Affairs Jan. 30, 2024