South Korea will allow its citizens to visit some parts of Iraq which had been banned from travel as safety is showing signs of improving, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The ministry has imposed a travel ban on Iraq since August 2007 for safety reasons though allowed exceptional permits for those involved business, government agencies and media.

Following the fall of the Iraqi city of Mosul to the ISIL militant group in 2014, however, all of those permits were suspended, except for people already staying there for business purposes.

The ministry said that it will allow its citizens to travel to some regions where South Koreans are already doing business for which the Iraqi government asked for cooperation, with their security to some extent guaranteed.

The ministry explained that the decision was made as the overall safety situation in Iraq is showing signs of improving and requests for the exceptional passport permits have been on the rise. (Yonhap)