South Korea's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will depart for Malaysia today... to attend a series of ASEAN meetings.
And there's extra attention this year as the top diplomats of all members from the so-called six-party nuclear talks, including North Korea's foreign minister, will be there.
Our Han Da-eun has the details.
The annual foreign ministers' meetings led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, will kick off in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
A series of talks will be held over the course of two days.
That includes Post Ministerial Conferences, the ASEAN+3 Foreign Ministers' Meetings and the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting.
But the ASEAN Regional Forum is garnering the most attention... as all members of the six-party nuclear talks will gather to discuss regional security along with 21 other partner nations.
The six-party talks, designed to denuclearize North Korea, have been stalled since 2008.
The officials representing the six-party nations are Seoul's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and the foreign ministers of China, Japan, Russia and North Korea.
Watchers are hoping some progress can be made on the North Korean nuclear issue.
The ASEAN Regional Forum is the only regional security forum in which North Korea takes part.
South Korea's foreign ministry says Minister Yun will once again urge North Korea to engage in denuclearization talks and express Seoul's will to resume inter-Korean dialogue.
During the ASEAN+3 meeting, ten ASEAN member nations plus South Korea, China, Japan will gather to cover a wide range of topics from climate change to infectious diseases.
Minister Yun will also attend the Korea-Mekong Foreign Ministers' Meeting,.. which will focus on ways to boost cooperation between Korea and five nations located in the Mekong region in Southeast Asia.
Those countries are Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
Han Da-eun, Arirang News.
