S. Korea's top diplomat to visit China: Seoul

SEOUL - South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se plans to visit China next week to attend the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) meeting of foreign ministers, Seoul's foreign ministry said on Friday.

The CICA, which was established in 1992 as a forum for dialogue and consultations on security issues in Asia, has held foreign ministers' meeting every four years. Next week's meeting will be the fifth edition.

The fifth round will be held in Beijing from April 27 to 28.

China, which holds the CICA presidency from 2014 to 2016, hosted the fourth CICA summit in Shanghai in 2014.

The CICA has 26 member states, including China, Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkey and Thailand.

It also includes countries like the United States and Japan and international organizations as observers.

South Korea joined the CICA in 2006 when then foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon, who is currently UN secretary general, attended the second CICA summit as a special envoy of then president Roh Moo-Hyun, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.

Since then, South Korea had sent vice foreign ministers to the CICA summit and foreign ministers' meeting. In 2014, the country dispatched its unification minister to Shanghai for the fourth CICA summit.

Yun will become the first South Korean foreign minister to attend the CICA meeting of foreign ministers, the ministry said.