SYDNEY (Yonhap) -- Korea's foreign ministry has convened an emergency meeting of senior diplomats in Canberra to discuss countermeasures for a string of assaults on South Korean nationals traveling or living in Australia, officials said Sunday.
The Friday meeting held in the Australian capital brought together about 10 Korean diplomats, including Ahn Young-jip, the director-general of overseas Koreans at the foreign ministry; Cho Tae-yong, the South Korean ambassador to Australia; and Kim Jin-soo, the South Korean consul general in Sydney, said the officials.
The meeting came after four assault cases on Korean nationals in Australia in three months have sparked media outrage in Korea.
Meeting participants agreed to further publicize personal safety measures among South Koreans in Australia, including refraining from going to crime-ridden districts at night, they said.
In late September, a 33-year-old South Korean student surnamed Chang was attacked at a park near his school in Melbourne by more than 10 local teenagers, who cut off a joint of his little finger and broke his left arm.
In November, another South Korean man was attacked in downtown Sydney by a group of assailants, while two other Korean nationals were attacked in unprovoked assaults in Brisbane and Gold Coast later that month.
There are more than 140,000 Koreans in Australia.
In early December, the foreign minister of Australia vowed that his government will make utmost efforts to track down those suspected of attacking Korean nationals in his country and bring them to justice.