South Korea on Friday expressed "strong regret" over Japan's push to recommend a former gold mine associated with wartime forced labor as a candidate for a UNESCO World Heritage site and called for its retraction. Seoul's Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon called in Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Aiboshi Koichi to lodge a protest after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced plans to nominate the controversial mine on Sado Island for the 2023 UNESCO heritage list

  The already fraught ties between South Korea and Japan were dealt yet another setback Friday when Tokyo plowed ahead with the recommendation of a former mine linked to wartime forced labor as a UNESCO World Heritage candidate despite Seoul's objections.  After weeks of deliberation, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the plan to nominate the gold and silver mine on Sado Island for the 2023 heritage designation, considering its historical value.  The move furthe

Japan is in "final consultations" internally to press ahead with a plan to recommend a local gold and silver mine as a candidate for UNESCO world heritage despite South Korea's strong opposition, according to a news report Friday. The Japanese government is nearing a decision to recommend the Sado mine in Niigata Prefecture, where thousands of Koreans were forced into hard labor during the 1910-45 colonization of the peninsula, as a candidate for the 2023 world heritage site, just day

South Korea's top trade official called on the United States on Friday to swiftly begin talks to revise the Section 232 tariff rules on Seoul's steel exports, the trade ministry said Friday. In 2018, the US waived the tariffs on South Korean steel products, but it was in return for a yearly import quota of 2.63 million tons of steel, or 70 percent of Seoul's average steel products export volume over the past three years. South Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo made the request to US Trade Repr

Increased market access may make a US-envisioned new economic framework in the Indo-Pacific region more attractive, South Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said Thursday. Yeo said the US-proposed Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF) may provide common goods by setting rules and standards, especially for newly emerging industries, such as digitalization, but insisted many countries would consider increased market access as a return for taking part in such an initiative. "I think market a

The United States is equally focused on dealing with the threat posed by North Korea just as it is with all other major security issues, US Department of Defense Press Secretary John Kirby said Thursday. North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday (Seoul time), marking its sixth missile launch since the start of this month. "Just because right now one issue obviously is certainly capturing the attention of the world community doesn't mean that we are not equally pursu

South Korea held talks Thursday with the three member states of the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) to join the world's first plurilateral digital pact. The DEPA, which came into effect in January last year, is an agreement signed by Singapore, New Zealand and Chile to establish key rules on digital trade issues, such as digital identities, cross-border data flows and artificial intelligence. South Korea said the pact could serve as an extensive platform for establishing a global

Many promising things can happen for North Korea if Pyongyang returns to the dialogue table with the US, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Japan and Korea Mark Lambert said Wednesday. The US diplomat also stressed that the US has "no reservations" regarding dialogue with North Korea. "We have made it very clear to Pyongyang. We will go anywhere. We will talk about anything. There are no reservations we have," he said in a webinar hosted by the Center for Strategic and

South Korea and the United Arab Emirates held a high-level meeting on Wednesday and agreed to establish a joint bidding team for nuclear energy projects in third-party countries, the foreign ministry said. The agreement was reached in the fourth session of their high-level consultation on nuclear energy, led by Seoul's Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon and Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, the UAE minister of energy and industry, held through video links, according to the ministry. Both

South Korean government advised its nationals residing in 15 regions in Ukraine to leave amid heightened fears of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. 　 The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday additionally placed 12 provinces located in the eastern and northern regions of Ukraine, including capital Kyiv, Rivne, Sumy and Odessa, under the elevated travel alert, advising South Korean nationals to swiftly exit the region. 　 Fifteen out of Ukraine’s 25 provinces are now under a Level 3 travel ad

WASHINGTON -- The United States remains committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through diplomacy and dialogue, state department press secretary Ned Price said Tuesday. The spokesperson also reiterated that the US harbors no hostile intent toward North Korea. "We have no hostile intent. We harbor no hostile intent towards the DPRK. We are open to dialogue. We're open to diplomacy," Price said in a press briefing, referring to North Korea by its official nam

Seo Kyung-duk, a well-known professor at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul, on Monday slammed the Japanese Embassy in Seoul for rejecting President Moon Jae-in’s Lunar New Year gift that bears an image resembling the Dokdo islets on the gift box, saying it was an attempt to make the island an area of conflict. 　 Cheong Wa Dae had sent a gift box with chestnuts, traditional liquor and other items to all the foreign ambassadors, including Japanese Ambassador Koichi Aiboshi, ahead

BEIJING -- People in a Beijing district with some 2 million residents were ordered Sunday to undergo mass coronavirus testing following a series of infections as China tightened anti-disease controls ahead of the Winter Olympics. The government told people in areas of the Chinese capital deemed at high risk for infection not to leave the city after 25 cases were found in the Fengtai district and 14 elsewhere. The ruling Communist Party is stepping up enforcement of its "zero toleranc

Iran has paid its dues to the United Nations with the country's funds frozen in South Korea in a move to immediately restore its voting power, Seoul's finance ministry said Sunday. Iran made an emergency request to South Korea on Jan. 13 for the use of Tehran's funds in Seoul to pay its dues after being informed by the UN it would immediately lose its voting rights for the arrears. Iran has more than $7 billion in funds for oil shipments frozen at two South Korean banks -- the Industrial Bank

South Korea is not considering lifting a ban on imports of Japanese seafood to win Japan's support for joining a mega free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region, Seoul's oceans minister has said. South Korea is working to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which involves 11 nations, including Australia and Japan. Japan has long been reluctant to South Korea's joining due mainly to Seoul's ban on Fukushima seafood. Since 2013, South Kor