Overview
- Second Vice Foreign Minister Kim Ji-na leads a joint response team departing Wednesday with police and intelligence officials to press for repatriations and cooperation in Phnom Penh.
- National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said 63 South Koreans are in Cambodian custody and about 80 others remain unverified, with a goal to bring the detainees home by this weekend for investigation in Korea.
- Seoul and Phnom Penh agreed to form a joint investigative task force and to coordinate a joint autopsy and the return of the Korean student killed in August, for which three Chinese nationals were charged.
- The government is preparing a special repatriation flight, seeking to bolster embassy police staffing, and proposing a permanent Korean Desk within Cambodian police, while Korean police launch a domestic task force and airport warnings.
- Official data show 330 reports of Koreans missing or confined in Cambodia through August, and the National Intelligence Service estimates more than 1,000 Koreans may be inside scam compounds, as cooperation has been slowed by formal legal procedures.