South Korea and the United States have agreed to consider terminating their "working group" forum on North Korea policy, the foreign ministry said Tuesday, in what appears to be a conciliatory gesture to Pyongyang that has decried the forum as a hurdle to inter-Korean ties. Seoul's top nuclear envoy, Noh Kyu-duk, and his US counterpart, Sung Kim, reached the agreement during their talks in Seoul on Monday, as they sought a coordinated strategy to resume nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyan

WASHINGTON -- The United States constantly reviews its joint military exercises with South Korea to make sure their forces are properly trained and prepared to meet threats, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. "We always say that we know we have to, our forces have got to be ready to fight tonight and we are constantly looking at the training events to make sure that they are appropriate and they are properly scaled to the threats and the challenges," the spokesman, John Kirby, said at

WASHINGTON -- The United States is willing to hold dialogue with North Korea at any time and any place, a State Department spokesman said Monday, also reiterating the latest US overture to meet without any preconditions, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday. The remarks from the department spokesman come after the special US envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, expressed hope that the North will respond positively to US outreach. "We certainly hope the DPRK will respond positively

World Cinema Week is being held in Seoul through July 1, hosted by the Korea Foundation and the embassies of Bulgaria, Argentina, Brazil, France, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Paraguay, Peru, Sweden,Thailand and Turkey . World Cinema Week is held annually in cooperation with the Korea Foundation and diplomatic missions in South Korea to introduce films from countries not easily accessible to Koreans. This year’s World Cinema Week presents recent films f

The Embassy of Israel in Korea and the Embassy of Korea in Israel have launched a joint logo design contest to create a graphic emblem capturing the dynamic spirit of the deepening engagement between the two countries and peoples.  The year 2021 is significant because Israel and South Korea signed a free trade agreement -- Israel’s first with an Asian country and South Korea’s first in the Middle East -- showing the two countries‘ deepening ties.  The contest was l

South Korea and Japan will hold working-level talks in Seoul later Monday to discuss a prolonged row over wartime sexual slavery, forced labor and other pending issues, the foreign ministry said. The planned meeting between Lee Sang-ryeol, director general for Asia and Pacific affairs at Seoul's foreign ministry, and his Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, comes amid little headway in Seoul's efforts to mend strained ties with Tokyo. Funakoshi, who doubles as Japan's top nuclear envoy, w

The United States has offered to meet with North Korea "anywhere, anytime without preconditions" and looks forward to a positive response from Pyongyang, the new US special envoy for the North said Monday. Ambassador Sung Kim made the remarks during trilateral talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Noh Kyu-duk and Takehiro Funakoshi, in Seoul, where they discussed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's recent remarks that his country should be ready for both dialogue and co

The new US special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, arrived in Seoul on Saturday for talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, as they seek a coordinated strategy to resume nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. Kim's five-day trip came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country should be ready for dialogue and more importantly, confrontation with the United States, and stressed the "stable control" of the Korean Peninsula situation in his first messa

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry is considering requesting an investigation by state auditors or police to find out why a controversial video screened at the P4G summit showed Pyongyang instead of Seoul, and whether it was an intentional act or purely accidental.  The ministry also said it will reprimand officials that were part of the P4G preparatory committee for not thoroughly checking the video content before it was released.  The decision came after the ministry opened an i

    Sixteen ambassadors to South Korea have established the Group of Friends of the Green Climate Fund, with the aim of sharing ideas and experiences on scaling up climate action in global and regional contexts. The members comprise the ambassadors of Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, France, Gabon, Germany, Guatemala, India, Italy, Mongolia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Mexico, New Zealand and Sweden. The informal group is co-chaired by the ambassadors of France, Gabon an

President Moon Jae-in returned home Friday morning after completing a weeklong trip to Europe, where he chatted and bumped elbows with other heads of state in a host of multilateral and bilateral meetings. “We are getting back to in-person diplomacy,” a Cheong Wa Dae official said on condition of anonymity. “Even though the size of the delegation may remain reduced for some time, we will continue to seek more opportunities for multilateral or bilateral meetings.” Follo

WASHINGTON -- The new US special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul later this week for trilateral talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, the State Department said Thursday. During his trip from Saturday through Wednesday, Kim will join the three-way session with Noh Kyu-duk, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and Takehiro Funakoshi, Tokyo's director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs, it said. "S

President Moon Jae-in on Thursday expressed hope for South Korean and Spain to form closer and more active ties in the tourism sector going forward, with the countries having decided to extend a bilateral travel exchange campaign that was canceled due to the pandemic. Moon, travelled to Spain for a three-day state visit, attended a South Korea-Spain tourism industry roundtable event held at the mountain-side monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia, north of Barcelona. At the event, the two govern

Sung Kim, the newly appointed US special envoy for North Korea, is set to visit South Korea on Saturday for a three-way meeting with his counterparts in Seoul and Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.  Kim’s five-day visit, which lasts till Wednesday, marks his first trip to South Korea since being appointed Biden’s point man on North Korea last month.  The US envoy is set to hold a bilateral meeting on Monday with his South Korean counterpart, Noh Kyu-duk, to discu

The Chilean Embassy in Seoul decorated Lim Ho, a Korean a lieutenant colonel who served as the defense and naval attache of Korea in Chile between 2016 and 2019, on Thursday. “It is the third time in history that a Korean defense attache has received this honor in more than 80 years of history of this medal,” the Chilean Embassy in Seoul told The Korea Herald. Hosting a ceremony, Ambassador Gloria Cid decorated Lt. Col. Lim Ho with the “Order of Naval Merit” in the &ld