Senior diplomats from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are set to hold bilateral meetings next week to coordinate responses to North Korea’s missile test and discuss future cooperation between their new foreign policy teams. Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will visit Korea Tuesday to meet Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun. He will visit Japan two days later.Shinsuke Sugiyama, Japan’s envoy to the six-party talks on North Korean nuclear prog

South Korea's incoming President Park Geun-hye was to meet with a special Chinese envoy Thursday as Seoul has been struggling to convince Beijing to get tough on North Korea over its long-range rocket launch last month.The issue of North Korea is likely to come up, even at least briefly, in Park's talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun, though the meeting is expected to be largely a courtesy call where both sides pledge close cooperation after she takes office next month.Zhang arr

President Lee Myung-bak and Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic exchanged congratulatory messages in celebrating the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Lee remarked positively on the steady development of ties over the past 20 years and expressed gratitude for Slovak support for Seoul’s election as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which begins this year, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade press release. The two countries established diplomatic relations

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said Friday he remained cautious about the prospects of improving the strained ties with Japan, describing relations with Tokyo as a "big challenge" for Seoul this year. Kim made the remarks at a meeting with former diplomats hosted by the Korean Council on Foreign Relations, hours before he meets with a special envoy sent by Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to President-elect Park Geun-hye. "I would like to emphasize that we should develop a futu

A Chinese arson suspect who was released from a Seoul prison after the court decided not to extradite him to Japan, left for home Friday, according to multiple Seoul sources.The South Korean court on Thursday rejected Japan's request to hand over Liu Qiang, 38, to be prosecuted for an alleged arson attack in 2011 at a controversial World War II shrine in Tokyo, saying that the crime he had committed was politically motivated.Liu departed for Shanghai, China on a 8:55 a.m. flight through Incheon

A Seoul court on Thursday rejected Japan’s request to hand over a Chinese attacker of Japanese facilities in Seoul and Tokyo. Liu Qiang, 39, was immediately released and is expected to return to his homeland.He was sentenced to 10 months in jail for hurling four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy building in Seoul in January 2011. His term ended in November but remained in custody pending the court’s review of Japan’s request to repatriate him. He confessed to an arson attack in December

A South Korean diplomat in Saudi Arabia died earlier this week in an apparent car accident, a senior official at Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday. The body of the consular official, who was only identified by his surname Kim, was found inside his car on Wednesday on a motorway in Riyadh, the Seoul official said on the condition of anonymity. "Local police are investigating into the exact cause of the apparent car accident," the official said. The consular official was working at the South