South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam on Wednesday expressed his "deepest condolences" over the death of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany's former foreign minister and key architect of the country's 1990 reunification.During his visit to the German Embassy in central Seoul, Lim wrote in the visitors' book, "His contributions to the unification of Germany will be remembered for long by the world, in particular by Korea."Genscher died of a heart failure at his home in Wachtberg near Bonn

The government has rejected calls to disclose the results of radiation level checks conducted on fishery goods caught near Japan, a civic group said Wednesday.The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on Tuesday dismissed the information disclosure request filed by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, the group said."As the information is related to a case pending at the World Trade Organization, (the disclosure) could lead to a leakage of our strategy to Japan," the ministry was quoted by the group

South Korea's top envoy to Japan said Wednesday he has offered to resign upon completing his duty of mending frayed bilateral ties.Ambassador Yoo Heung-soo told Yonhap News Agency by phone that he wanted to step down this year after the two countries agreed in December to settle their decadeslong dispute over Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.The ambassador said he postponed his resignation offer to handle the aftermath of North Korea's nuclear test in January but recently tende

South Korean President Park Geun-hye paid tribute to six Mexican cadets at a monument as she began the third day of her visit to Mexico.Park laid a wreath at the Heroic Cadets Memorial in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, a monument that honors the six cadets who fought to the death in 1847 during the Mexican-American War.Park also attended a formal welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace before holding talks with her Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto.The summit comes as South Korea i

South Korea and Japan are each other's most important neighbors, sharing strategic interests, a draft of Tokyo's annual foreign policy report said Monday.Japan's ties with South Korea have greatly advanced since last year's bilateral deal to settle the issue of Korean women forced to work at wartime Japanese military brothels, said the draft Diplomatic Bluebook for 2016 obtained by Kyodo News Service.According to the draft of the Japanese foreign ministry, South Korea is one of the most importan

Some 100 days after South Korea and Japan agreed to settle the thorny issue of the latter's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, an unrelenting backlash from the victims and their supporters remains a stumbling block to the enforcement of the agreement, analysts here said Monday.From staging regular protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to filing a lawsuit to invalidate the Dec. 28 agreement, victims and civic groups have voiced their vociferous opposition to the deal, that S

The following was contributed by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu ahead of the United Nations World Humanitarian Summit on May 23 and 24. – Ed.Despite worldwide shock and indignation, it looks as if little Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi’s tragic death last summer has changed little. We are saddened by our collective negation.The power of image and social media, so effective in entertainment, has betrayed those less fortunate. Since Aylan’s death six months ago, countless more innocent men, wome

Nutrition and Education International, a nongovernmental organization, hosted a ceremony marking the shipment of equipment for a sterilized soy milk plant in Afghanistan. Twenty-five containers were shipped from Busan to Karachi in southern Pakistan, to be transported to Afghanistan, where the plant is scheduled to be constructed and operational by September. The venue at Daesung Food Tech Corporation headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on March 25 was attended by representatives from Worl

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has called for a free trade deal with Mexico in Seoul's latest push to make inroads into the emerging market, saying it would create a win-win situation for the two countries.South Korea and Mexico launched free trade talks in 2007, but the negotiations have been stalled since 2008 due to strong opposition from the Mexican automobile industry.Last year, South Korea asked Mexico to resume talks on a bilateral free trade agreement."I think it's meaningful for S

South Korea and Japan will hold talks on Friday to strengthen cooperation in the development sector, setting aside their political differences, officials said.The two countries have held annual meetings to discuss their respective development policies but have yet to conduct any joint projects. Development cooperation is seen as one area where the neighbors could work together despite their various rows over history and territorial issues."South Korea and Japan are the only donor nations in the

Japanese prosecutors have indicted a Japanese man on charges of hurling a box containing human feces at the South Korean consulate general in Yokohoma, south of Tokyo, Kyodo News Service reported.Kyodo said the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office indicted the 23-year-old on Thursday for allegedly throwing the box into the parking area outside the building on Dec. 11, 2015, saying he had interfered with the duty of the consulate general's officials.A note on the box read, "This is revenge