South Korea plans to stage a military drill to better defend its easternmost islets of Dokdo this month as Japan ratchets up its sovereignty claims, officials said Wednesday. The exercise is designed to stave off any illegal approaches and will be conducted jointly by the military and coast guard for two days late this month on and around the windswept outcrops in the East Sea, they said. Among the scheduled plans is a landing training exercise by the Navy’s Underwater Demolition and Sea, Air an

Seoul will release a report on Korean victims of the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan to raise awareness about the damage suffered by those who were forced into slave labor during World War II, officials said Tuesday.In December 2010, a committee under the Prime Minister’s Office in charge of investigating forced conscription during Japanese colonial rule issued a paper detailing the victims’ sufferings for the first time at the state level. It will translate the document into Ja

North Korea’s ceremonial head of state will travel to Russia this week to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, state media said Monday, days after Moscow unveiled the revocation of an anticipated trip by leader Kim Jong-un.Kim Yong-nam, president of the Supreme People’s Assembly, will be among the more than two dozen world leaders that Moscow says will take part in the event slated for Saturday. The Korean Central News Agency’s report did not specify the tim

Four civic groups here on Monday called for top U.S. policymakers and politicians to induce Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to sincerely apologize for his country’s sex slavery and other wartime atrocities in a joint letter. The dispatch is designed to request the members of U.S. Congress, where the premier is scheduled to deliver an address on Wednesday, to urge him to “voice clearly and publicly” and offer a “heartfelt apology” for Tokyo’s colonial rule and aggression. The text was written

With Seoul unwavering in its calls for an apology for wartime atrocities, Tokyo appears to be seeking ways to sidestep rising criticism over its revisionist push, boosting lobbying in Washington and other trilateral partnerships to shore up the U.S. strategic refocus to Asia.As the historical and territorial tension drags out between South Korea and Japan, concerns have risen that their strain may derail hard-won trilateral security cooperation involving the U.S. The Stimson Center, a Washington

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan held their first-ever trilateral vice-foreign-ministerial talks on Thursday in Washington as Seoul seeks to boost pragmatic cooperation with Tokyo such as on security and the economy despite persistent historical tension.South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong arrived in the U.S. capital late on Wednesday ahead of the three-way meeting the following day with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki. With