President Moon Jae-in arrived in Budapest on Tuesday to hold a series of summit talks with the leaders of the so-called Visegrad Group: Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. It will be the second gathering between South Korea and the four Eastern European countries. On Thursday, the president will hold multilateral and bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of the Visegrad nations. On the sidelines of the meetings, a business forum, a first of its kind, also will be held to explo

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is facing criticism for allegedly delaying the delivery of remarks of mourning issued from leaders of other countries upon the death of former President Roh Tae-woo. The Foreign Ministry officially delivered the statements to the bereaved family of Roh on Monday, days after remarks started flying in from global leaders after Roh’s death on Oct. 26. Remarks of condolences came from leaders of China, Japan and Vietnam, the ministry said. Ministry spokesperso

The top nuclear negotiators of South Korea and Japan held phone talks Tuesday to explore measures for progress in stalled denuclearization efforts, Seoul's foreign ministry said. Noh Kyu-duk, the special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and his Japanese counterpart Takehiro Funakoshi shared their assessments of the regional security situations and discussed ways to achieve lasting peace, according to the ministry. The two sides agreed to closely work together for

The chief diplomats of South Korea and Britain discussed bolstering bilateral cooperation in various areas, such as tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, as they met on the sidelines of a major UN climate conference, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong sat down for talks with his British counterpart, Liz Truss, in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday (local time) on visits there for the 26th Conference of the Parties, according to the ministry. During their meeting, the tw

President Moon Jae-in plans to report South Korea’s raised goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at U.N. climate talks on Monday, as the COP26 talks opened with a sense of urgency regarding the need to limit global warming.  More than 100 heads of state, including Moon, U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, gathered in Glasgow, Scotland‘s biggest city, for the U.N. climate summit, which came a day after leaders of G-20 major economies stopped s

The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and China held a videoconference Monday to discuss measures for an early resumption of the Korean peace process, including the proposed declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul's foreign ministry said. Noh Kyu-duk, the special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, held the virtual talks with his Chinese counterpart Liu Xiaoming to explain Seoul's efforts to revive stalled dialogue with North Korea and requested

South Korea under renewed pressure to play a bigger role in creating US-led new supply ecosystem

President Moon Jae-in on Sunday pledged that South Korea will compete the phaseout of coal-fired power generation by 2050 and contribute to achieving carbon neutrality on a global level.  Moon made the remarks as the leaders of the Group of 20 countries gathered for the second day of the Rome summit, their first in-person gathering since the COVID-19 pandemic, with attention focused on whether they will reach a meaningful agreement on how to fight global warming.  "In line with

South Korea and the United States have been discussing the latter's nuclear policy review on "various occasions," a Seoul official said Sunday, amid reports that Washington is mulling a policy shift feared to weaken military deterrence. The Financial Times reported Saturday that US allies have been lobbying President Joe Biden not to alter America's policy on the use of nuclear weapons, amid speculation he is considering a "no-first-use" approach that critics say could embol

The US Central Intelligence Agency ran a previously undisclosed office in Seoul until last year, legal sources said Sunday. The existence of the office, which was used to collect open-source intelligence on South Korea as part of the CIA's Open Source Enterprise, became known after three former employees sued the US government for firing them, according to the sources. The plaintiffs, all South Koreans, were hired between 2005 and 2009 and laid off around February and March of last year. They

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed Saturday to step up efforts to boost the supply of COVID-19 vaccines to developing nations, the presidential office said. Moon met with the European Union leader on the sidelines of this year's summit of the Group of 20 major economies that opened in the Italian capital on Saturday for a two-day run. The two leaders agreed to jointly take steps to increase the supply of vaccines to developing natio

US President Joe Biden on Saturday welcomed as good news Pope Francis' expression of a willingness to visit North Korea when he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Rome, an aide to Moon said. Biden made the remarks as Moon told him that he asked the pope to visit North Korea to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula and Pope Francis positively reacted to the offer by saying he is willing to go to the North if he receives an invitation, presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said. Bid

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was re-elected as the head of a Seoul-based international organization on green growth for a third term to serve until 2023, officials said Friday. On Thursday, the 40 members of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) unanimously approved the appointment of Ban as president of the institute, according to the GGGI officials. The institute was launched in 2012 to support developing countries' efforts for transition to environmentally-sustainable economic

Airlines of South Korea and European Union member states will be allowed to operate without restrictions on their nationality requirements starting next month under a new aviation accord, Seoul's foreign ministry said Friday. South Korea and 22 EU member states signed a horizontal aviation agreement in June 2020, which goes into effect Monday, the foreign ministry said. The horizontal accord will ease nationality requirements for airlines to allow any EU member states to operate on the routes

ATLANTA -- The US state of Georgia on Thursday welcomed SKC Co.'s decision to build a glass-based substrate plant there, saying it would help create jobs. Hailing SKC's decision as an unprecedented big project, Georgia Gov. Brian P. Kemp tweeted that it would help create more jobs and shows the state is one of the supply chain hubs in America. "400 new jobs coming to Covington, GA via SKC's $473M investment to manufacture glass-based substrates for semiconductor chips," Kemp said. &q