The search for 21 missing passengers of a sightseeing boat that sank in Hungary continued Sunday as recovery efforts remained hampered by high waters, strong currents and poor underwater visibility. Upon returning from Hungary on Sunday, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said the full-scale underwater search operation could begin Monday, as the Danube River’s water levels were expected to fall and currents to be slower. “We will see the river conditions and dispatch divers

South Korea's Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo sought to promote defense exchanges and cooperation with Vietnam, NATO and Singapore and asked for their backing for Seoul's efforts to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, his office said Friday.  Jeong made the appeals during back-to-back bilateral talks with Vietnam's Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich; Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chairman of the NATO Military Committee; and Singapore's Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen

The chief nuclear envoys of South Korea, the US and Japan held trilateral talks in Singapore on Friday to explore ways to break the current impasse in negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization, officials said.  The envoys -- Lee Do-hoon, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs; U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun; and Kenji Kanasugi, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bur

The deadly boat sinking in Hungary earlier this week was a topic of President Moon Jae-in's conversations with a group of new foreign ambassadors here Friday, his office said.Presenting their credentials, five ambassadors based in Seoul and a dozen others stationed in different countries but doubling as ambassadors here expressed a chorus of condolences over the sinking of the sightseeing ship on the Danube River in Budapest on Wednesday night (local time). A total of 33 South Koreans were aboar

US senators pledged active congressional support Friday to continue close coordination between Seoul and Washington on easing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and to further promote the bilateral alliance, Seoul's defense ministry said.  The senators -- Angus King (I-ME), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) -- made the commitment during a meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo on the sidelines of the ongoing Asia Security Summit, better know

The US State Department said Wednesday it is longstanding US policy to use only one name for international waters, after President Donald Trump referred to the body of water between Korea and Japan as the Sea of Japan.South Korea has long campaigned for dual usage of the name East Sea, arguing Sea of Japan is a legacy of Tokyo's imperialist past, including its 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. Trump was in Japan earlier this week when he mentioned the Sea of Japan as part of a pep ta

South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho said Wednesday that fostering "sustainable peace" on the peninsula is vital to achieving "resilient peace" in Asia long beset by North Korea's nuclear threats and other security challenges. Lee made the remarks during the annual Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity, which kicked off its three-day run under the main theme of "Asia Towards Resilient Peace: Cooperation and Integration.""Above all, (we) should achieve s

Relations between South Korea and Japan have deteriorated to what is arguably their worst point to date as they dispute every inch of ground over Tokyo’s responsibility to compensate the Korean victims of forced labor during World War II. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha’s meeting with her Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, in Paris on Friday thwarted hopes that those strained ties would mend anytime soon. The two top envoys wrapped up their meeting having only escalated the tensio

The top Japanese envoy in Seoul asked for South Korea's cooperation for a successful Group of 20 summit in Japan, South Korea's finance ministry said Monday.Japan's Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nakamine made the request in a meeting with Hong Nam-ki, minister of economy and finance, at a government building in Seoul, according to the ministry.The summit, set for June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, will bring together leaders of the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies, including South Korea

South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae has found the diplomat suspected of leaking the phone talks between President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump to a lawmaker earlier this month, an official said Wednesday. Earlier this month, Rep. Khang Hyo-shang of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said Moon asked Trump during the phone conversation to visit South Korea immediately after his May 25-28 trip to Japan, citing an unnamed diplomatic source in the US."We have conf

The top diplomats of South Korea and Japan were set to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of an international meeting in Paris on Thursday amid rising tensions over Tokyo's wartime forced labor, Seoul's foreign ministry said.Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will meet her Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, on the margins of the Ministerial Council Meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the French capital. Bilateral ties have chilled in recent months as Japan has c

President Moon Jae-in had phone talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates on Monday, days after a South Korean hostage in Libya was released with the help of the UAE authorities.Moon expressed his gratitude to the UAE government and the crown prince, who doubles as deputy supreme commander of the country's armed forces, for efforts to get the man freed, according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson, Ko Min-jung. President Moon Jae-in holds phone talks with Crown

South Korea will look prudently into Japan's request for the formation of an arbitration panel involving a third-country member to address the long-simmering issue of Tokyo's wartime forced labor, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday. Earlier in the day, the ministry received a formal request for the panel's establishment. Tokyo bases it on dispute settlement procedures laid out in a 1965 state-to-state accord that normalized bilateral ties after Japan's 1910-45 colonization of the peninsula."Th

Rescue efforts by the United Arab Emirates and the Eastern-Libya army played a crucial role in freeing a Korean national held captive for 315 days in western Libya, an official at Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Friday. The 62-year-old Korean hostage, surnamed Joo, and three Filipinos were taken hostage by militants last year while working as civil engineers at a desalination plant in western Libya. The ministry official cited a statement from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International

Expanding communication channels through nongovernment-oriented activities is crucial for strengthening relations between South Korea and China, said Kwon Ki-sik, chairman of Korea-China City Friendship Association.The organization, under Seoul’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, held its first civilian forum dealing with South Korea-China cooperation for establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula in Beijing on May 7. Since the two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1992, they hav