Providing North Korean defectors with decent jobs is key to their resettlement in South Korea, Unification Minister Lee In-young said Monday, pledging to provide them with better jobs "both in quantity and quality." Lee made the remarks during his speech at a special exhibition displaying products manufactured by defectors held at the National Assembly, saying the ministry is working hard to help defectors land jobs, including opening a job center at Hanawon, a state-run resettlement

The Defense Ministry said Monday it will soon inform the bereaved family of a South Korean official killed by North Korea in September of whether it will provide them with the military intelligence collected in the course of the incident. On Sept. 22, North Korea fatally shot the 47-year-old official, who was adrift in its side of the Yellow Sea, and burned his body, according to the South Korean military. He went missing the previous day while on duty near the western border island of Yeonpyeo

South Korea will launch an ecological survey on the Han River's estuary along the inter-Korean border this week as part of efforts to implement an agreement with North Korea to jointly use the now-restricted waterway, the unification ministry said Sunday. The survey will start Monday for a 10-month run on about 80 square kilometers of wetland on the southern side of the Han River, near the western border between the two Koreas, to collect "in-depth" ecological and environmental data,

An emergency anti-virus law that North Korea recently enacted requires not only its citizens, but also foreigners, to unconditionally obey anti-virus measures, including a ban on entering the sea, according to a state newspaper report. The law also bans foreigners from making unauthorized visits to border regions, while stipulating that the bodies of those who die in an epidemic should be handled according to related regulations, according to the Minju Joson newspaper as obtained by Yonhap News

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a message to pro-North Korean residents in Japan encouraging them to continue friendly relations with Japan and make sure to be safe from the coronavirus, state media said Sunday. "All the branches should ... create an external environment favorable for the existence and development of the community of the Koreans resident in Japan by taking the initiative in conducting activities for friendship with the Japanese people," Kim said in the letter rel

The al-Shabab Islamic extremist group used what appears to be a North Korean mortar in an apparent attack against the United Nations compound in Somalia earlier this year, a UN panel has said, in a sign of possible arms deals between the two sides. The al-Qaida-linked group carried out six separate mortar attacks on the international airport in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu, between February and May. One of the attacks involved four 60-mm mortar rounds that were fired in the direction of th

A North Korean propaganda outlet said Friday that the Korean War was the result of invasion by US imperialists, calling it a shameless distortion of history to claim that the North started the war. Uriminzokkiri renewed the North's long-held claim after Chinese President Xi Jinping recently caused a stir by saying that the 1950-53 conflict was the fight against US "imperialist invaders." The Korean War broke out after North Korean troops invaded the South on June 25, 1950, with backi

There may be some truth in NK’s explanation under extreme anti-COVID policy, expert says

Unification Minister Lee In-young called Friday for North Korea to cooperate in efforts to turn the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two sides into "experimental space for coexistence." Lee made the remarks in an opening speech during an international forum held in the border town of Cherwon to discuss how to develop the world's most heavily fortified border into a peace zone. "The South and the North are a single community of life and security," Lee told the forum.

North Korea said Friday that South Korea is the first to blame for the death of a fisheries official killed at sea last month because the South failed to exercise proper control over its citizen. But the North also said such an "accidental" incident should not lead inter-Korean relations to a "catastrophe." It also said it tried its best, unsuccessfully, to search for the body of the South Korean official to return it to his family. The 47-year-old fisheries official was fa

South Korea discovered hundreds more bone fragments believed to be from soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War and thousands of artifacts used by troops, including from the United States and China, this year inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the defense ministry said Thursday. The military resumed a demining and excavation operation on Arrowhead Ridge on the border with North Korea in Cheorwon, some 90 kilometers northeast of Seoul, on April 20 after months of hiatus during winter to con

North Korea sharply criticized South Korea's national security adviser over his remarks during a recent trip to the United States that inter-Korean relations should be resolved through discussions with the US and other countries in the region. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the remarks by Suh Hoon, chief of the South's presidential National Security Office, represent a "denial and betrayal" of a series of inter-Korean agreements. "South Korea's security advi

Chinese President Xi Jinping has renewed his commitment to firm up relations with North Korea "generation after generation," saying the world is witnessing the "great rapid change unprecedented in 100 years," Pyongyang's state media reported Thursday. Xi made the remarks in a response message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after Kim sent a congratulatory message earlier this month on the occasion of the 71st founding anniversary of China, according to the Korean Central

WASHINGTON -- North Korea's denuclearization would bring prosperity to the communist country, instead of the collapse of its regime as feared by leader Kim Jong-un, the top US security adviser said Wednesday. National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said that was the vision President Donald Trump tried to lay out for Kim, for which he insisted the US leader deserved praise. "There is a lot of concern on the North Korean side that if the Kim family gives up their nuclear weapons, it could

Signing a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War is the first step toward denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula, Moon Chung-in, President Moon Jae-in’s special security adviser, said Tuesday. “With the end-of-war declaration as a steppingstone for denuclearization, we must play our part to bring about a peace regime here,” security adviser Moon told a forum hosted by the National Unification Advisory Council, a state body offering counsel to the president on in