Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Flap

Foreign Minister Park Jung Soo submitted his resignation to President Kim Dae Jung, a presidential spokesman said without elaborating. However, Park’s resignation follows a diplomatic row between Moscow and Seoul in which Russia expelled a South Korean diplomat last month, accusing him of buying secret information. Seoul retaliated days later by kicking out a Russian diplomat. Park has been criticized for supposedly agreeing to allow the Russian diplomat to return to Seoul, although he has denied those allegations.