BEIJING (AFP) --  Beijing on Friday lashed out at a claim by the US intelligence chief that China is the "greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide", calling it a "hodgepodge of lies". The war of words comes as relations between the two superpowers have spiralled to their lowest point in decades and as Washington unveiled travel restrictions for members of the Chinese Communist Party. US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a Wall Street J

The foreign ministry said Friday that its budget has been set at 2.84 trillion won ($2.62 billion) for next year, with a focus on bolstering noncontact diplomacy amid the coronavirus pandemic. The total amount includes a 6.4 billion-won increase for what it calls "digital plus public diplomacy," which is aimed at improving infrastructure for virtual meetings that have become a new standard for diplomats since the outbreak of COVID-19 has disrupted in-person talks, the ministry said.

Vietnam will allow coronavirus quarantine exemptions to business travelers and their families from South Korea from the beginning of next year as part of efforts to shore up economic exchanges despite the pandemic, the foreign ministry said Friday. The two countries reached the agreement when Seoul's Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho, visiting Vietnam, paid a courtesy call on Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh earlier in the day, the ministry said in a press release. The measure

Japan remains negligent in carrying out UNESCO recommendations that the country offer correct accounts of wartime forced labor when describing the history of industrial sites recognized as World Heritage, an official said Friday. When the 23 Meiji-era industrial sites won the World Heritage recognition in 2015, Japan promised to set up an information center to remember and honor the victims in a way that recognizes that they were forcibly mobilized for labor. But the promise was not kept. A

WASHINGTON -- The United States and South Korea can and must work together to promote their shared values and check China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, a US diplomat said Thursday. A South Korean diplomat here agreed on the need for the allies to work together, but highlighted the importance of first laying out their common goals. "We have a long standing cooperative relationship and one that I foresee going forward, I mean, because basically it comes down to the kind of

WASHINGTON -- An expanded security forum has taken root in the Indo-Pacific region, a US commission reported Thursday, despite consistent US government denials of any attempt to broaden the so-called Quad. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission claimed China's increasingly assertive behavior has led to an increase in cohesion among the countries participating in the multilateral forum, known as the Quad, initially consisting of the United States, Japan, India and Australia. "

The South Korean presidential office on Thursday denied a news report that an annual trilateral summit between South Korea, China and Japan, which Seoul plans to host this year, will be postponed to next year. Japan's Nikkei reported earlier in the day that the hosting of this year's annual three-way summit will be delayed as the environment in which South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga can meet in person has not been arranged. "No decision has b

Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho will depart for Vietnam on Thursday for bilateral talks and a multilateral business forum with the Southeast Asian partners in the Mekong region, the foreign ministry said. During the three-day trip, Lee will attend the South Korea-Mekong Business Forum, an annual conference consisting of Korea and the five countries near the Mekong River -- Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, the ministry said in a release. The meeting will be held via video

South Korea on Wednesday denounced the assassination of a leading Iranian nuclear scientist as a criminal act that does not help bring stability and peace in the region. The foreign ministry's comment came after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear weapons expert, was killed in a bomb and gun attack on a road outside Tehran last week, amplifying tensions between Iran and neighboring nations. "We stress that this kind of violent criminal act is not conducive to stability and peace in the Middle E

BERLIN -- A Berlin district council has passed a resolution seeking to keep a statue of a girl symbolizing the victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery permanently installed at a public site, officials and reports said Wednesday. The resolution, approved by a majority vote at Berlin's Mitte district parliament on Tuesday (Berlin time), calls for measures to have the statue remain in the district while extending the statue's installation period by another six weeks to September next year. The

The United States was "encouraged" by recent efforts by South Korea and Japan to "address their differences," a State Department official said Wednesday, highlighting the need for trilateral cooperation against North Korean nuclear and missile threats. Marc Knapper, deputy assistant secretary for Korea and Japan at the East Asian and Pacific affairs bureau, made the remark in a webinar, apparently referring to a series of visits to Japan by senior South Korean officials on t

WASHINGTON -- The United States is not asking its allies, including South Korea and Japan, to sever their ties with China but to call out bad behavior, a senior US diplomat said Tuesday. Marc Knapper, deputy assistant secretary of state for Korea and Japan, also said his country understands its two Asian allies have a very unique relationship with China. "First of all, we recognize both Japan and South Korea have very complex, very nuanced relations with the People's Republic of China, in

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will visit Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates this week, in a move to bolster cooperation with countries in the Middle East, her office said Tuesday.  Kang is set to travel to Bahrain from Friday to Saturday, during which she will attend the Manama Dialogue, an annual security conference held in Bahrain’s capital that involves security and political officials and experts in the region.  At the forum, she is set to deliver a speech about globa

South Korea and the UN disarmament office will hold a joint conference on disarmament and nonproliferation this week, with a focus on emerging weapons, such as killer robots and hypersonic missiles, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. The 19th Joint Conference on Disarmament and Nonproliferation Issues will take place via video links Wednesday for a two-day run, with government officials and think tank experts from more than 20 countries, as well as those from international organizations, expect

South Korea and the US held defense cost-sharing talks for the first time since the US presidential election, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.   　 During the talks, held via a videoconference Monday evening here, Korea’s chief negotiator Jeong Eun-bo and US counterpart Donna Welton agreed to “closely work together to swiftly reach an agreement that is fair and mutually acceptable,” the ministry said.    The meeting was attended by officials from Seoul’