South Korea said Friday it has allowed a seven-member Buddhist delegation to travel to North Korea next week for discussions on a joint project to return artifacts seized by Japan from the Korean Peninsula during the 1910-45 colonial occupation. The approval is the latest apparent sign of lessening

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak held one-one-one talks with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Friday and discussed the North Korean nuclear standoff and other issues, an official said.Their meeting took place as the leaders gathered on the Indonesian resort island of Bali for a series of ann

Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik will meet with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo and other high-ranking officials next week to seek their opinions on South Korea’s policy toward North Korea, the Unification Ministry said on Friday.Other Chinese officials scheduled to meet with Yu include Tang Jiaxuan, former state councilor of China, Wang Jiarui, director of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.Yu’s visit will tak

Defectors from North Korea plan to designate North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday “world North Korean defectors’ day,” and hold a rally on the day, a high profile defector said Friday.According to An Chan-il, the chief of World Institute of North Korea Studies and the first defector to obtain a doctorate degree in politics in South Korea, groups representing defectors will celebrate Feb. 16 in honor of those who escaped the regime.An also said that the representatives plan to bring togethe

Senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold trilateral talks in Indnesia on Thursday to coordinate their joint strategy on the North Korean nuclear standoff, a Seoul official said. The trilateral meeting, to be held later in the day ahead of the 18-nation East Asia Summit in Bali, will be led by Lim Sung-nam, Seoul’s chief envoy to the stalled six-nation talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons programs, his Japanese counterpart Shinsuke Sugiyama and Kurt Campbell

Senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold trilateral talks in Indnesia on Thursday to coordinate their joint strategy on the North Korean nuclear standoff, a Seoul official said. The trilateral meeting, to be held later in the day ahead of the 18-nation East Asia Summi

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) _ President Barack Obama says the United States will act firmly against any nuclear proliferation activities by North Korea.In a speech to the Australian Parliament on Thursday, Obama says the transfer of nuclear material by North Korea to others would be ``considered a grav

Greek authorities seized almost 14,000 anti-chemical weapons suits from a North Korean ship possibly headed for Syria but did not disclose the find for nearly two years, diplomats said Wednesday.The seizure was reported to the UN Security Council, which discussed the monitoring of nuclear sanctions

The Iranian Embassy in Seoul claimed Tehran has indigenous technology for a peaceful nuclear program, saying it is opposed to the development of nuclear weapons. “Iran’s nuclear technology is completely domestically made, thus no foreign experts are needed,” the embassy said in an e-mail statement. The statement came one day after Yonhap news agency reported that hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts have been collaborating with Iranian counterparts in more than 10 locations acros

Seoul sends hepatitis B vaccines to Pyongyang, halts flying propaganda leafletsThe South Korean government has been taking a more “flexible” approach to North Korea since Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik took office in September. The Unification Ministry said Tuesday it had finished sending 1 million hepatitis B vaccines for North Korean children with the help of international aid group Caritas Germany and the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare. The vaccinations are worth 1.06 billion w