South Korea and Chile have launched another round of talks on upgrading a bilateral free trade agreement in line with changing global trade circumstances, Seoul's industry ministry said Tuesday. The seventh round of negotiations to revise their FTA began Monday in Santiago and is set to run until Wednesday, during which they will deal with upgrading rules on a wide range of sectors, including goods trading, trade facilitation, intellectual property, labor and environment, according to the M

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo met with the visiting head of the World Trade Organization on Monday, highlighting the importance of recovering the multilateral trading system, according to Han's office. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala arrived in Seoul on Monday for a three-day stay, marking the first visit to South Korea by the WTO’s top official since 2014. During the dinner meeting, Han emphasized the crucial role of the WTO in restoring the multilateral trading system ami

President Yoon Suk Yeol and European Union leaders have agreed to strengthen their cooperation to foster peace and stability in their regions in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s growing provocations, during their summit held in Seoul on Monday. Yoon held a summit meeting on Monday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, who flew to Seoul after attending the Group of Seven summit held in Hiroshima

TOKYO -- A team of South Korean experts began its official activities to inspect the planned release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant Monday, amid lingering concerns about the safety of the water. The Korean delegation is scheduled to hold a meeting later in the day with Japanese officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the wrecked power plant, as well as the industry ministry and the Nuclear Regulation Authority, the country's top n

South Korea and Germany agreed on Sunday to sign a military deal on sharing their military secrets to streamline supply chains involving the two countries’ defense industries. The summit, which took place at the presidential office in Seoul following the two leaders’ participation in the Group of Seven summit in Japan the same day, is the latest efforts by Yoon to partner with democracies to put checks on North Korea amid its escalating nuclear threats. “Germany understands th

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Indonesian President Joko Widodo discussed widening their relations and cooperation in future industries at a summit on the sidelines of the Group of Seven Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on Sunday. During the bilateral summit, Yoon said he is pleased with the rapid progress in cooperation between the Korea and Indonesia since Widodo’s visit to Korea in July last year, according to a written briefing from the presidential office. Yoon said the Korean go

Yoon, Zelenskyy hold talks for 1st time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held a trilateral summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday. The three leaders met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit for talks expected to focus on ways to strengthen trilateral security cooperation against North Korea's nuclear threat and China's assertiveness. The leaders last held a three-way meeting in Cambodia in November and agreed to share missile warning data in real time to cope w

Inspection team chief says mission is to ensure Koreans' safety based on scientific approach

On final day of G-7 meeting, Biden invites Yoon, Kishida for a 3-way summit in Washington

HIROSHIMA -- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a summit in Hiroshima on Sunday, their third meeting in two months as bilateral relations thaw. The latest meeting came on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit, while the previous two were held in Tokyo in March and then in Seoul earlier this month during bilateral visits by Yoon and Kishida, respectively. Bilateral relations have warmed significantly since Seoul offered in March to compensate

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time in Hiroshima on Sunday, according to Yoon's officials. The meeting is set to take place on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit. The Ukrainian leader arrived in the Japanese city on Saturday. The meeting was arranged at Ukraine's request, they said. The meeting comes less than a week after Yoon met Zelenskyy's wife, first lady Olena Zelenska, in Seoul. On Tuesday, Zelens

President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged $24 million to a coalition combating epidemics and double its provision of grain through the UN World Food Program during an expanded meeting of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Saturday. Yoon pledged the new donation to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to strengthen global health care systems. The coalition was created at the 2007 Davos Forum as a public-private joint venture whose backers included the Norwegian government and the Bill Gate

China's exports to North Korea soared in April from a year earlier, with wigs and fertilizer among major shipments, Chinese customs data showed on Saturday. Chinese outbound shipments to the isolated country surged 69% year-on-year to $166 million in April, data released by China's General Administration of Customs showed. The top export items in terms of value were processed hair and wool used in wigs, worth about $11.6 million, and diammonium hydrogen phosphate, a widely used fertili

Talks to avoid a US debt default were on a knife edge Saturday as President Joe Biden warned he would not accept "extreme" Republican demands but said he remained optimistic. "I still believe we'll be able to avoid a default and we'll get something decent done," he told reporters at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. With the Treasury Department warning that the US government could run out of money as early as June 1 -- triggering massive economic disruption in the