WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The U.S. government on Tuesday noted South Korea‘s role in global efforts to counter piracy in waters off Somalia.

South Korea is among more than 80 member states of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, a voluntary ad hoc forum created in 2009 under a U.N. Security Council resolution.

The Contact Group has five working groups aimed at drawing on a wide range of international expertise and taking a problem-solving approach to piracy in cooperation with Somali officials.

South Korea leads Working Group 3, “working closely with the shipping industry to enhance awareness and build capabilities among seafarers transiting the region,” the State Department said in its Quarterly Update on the Contact Group.

Britain, Denmark, Egypt and Italy lead the other working groups.

“This unique international partnership is contributing to a significant decline in piracy off the Horn of Africa,” the department said. “Thanks in part to the Contact Group’s concerted efforts, there has not been a successful pirate attack on a commercial vessel off the Horn of Africa in more than a year and a half, and pirates no longer control a single hijacked vessel.”

Earlier this month, meanwhile, South Korea held joint antipiracy naval dills with Japan and the U.S. in the Gulf of Aden despite strained Seoul-Tokyo political ties.