The South Korean foreign minister departed for Germany Thursday to meet with the German foreign minister on ways to step up cooperation over the North Korean nuclear issue and Seoul's push for unification.
  

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier are scheduled to meet on Friday in Berlin before holding a joint press conference in the afternoon, the foreign ministry said.
  

The ministers' plan to discuss how to strengthen their collaboration over the North Korean nuclear stand-off and Seoul's drive for the unification of the Korean Peninsula as well as other international issues including Ukraine's conflict with Russia and the spread of the Ebola virus.
  

Yun's German visit also includes bilateral meetings with foreign ministers on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference set to kick off on Friday for a three-day run.
  

Among the foreign ministers whom Yun plans to meet is U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
  

Yun and Kerry are expected to touch on the latest developments in North Korea as well as the U.S. policy on the Korean Peninsula in their meeting scheduled for Saturday.
  

The meetings came as the multilateral forum on denuclearizing the North has been dormant since late 2008. The North is believed to have developed intercontinental ballistic missiles while the talks have stalled.
  

Despite a year of efforts to revive the disarmament talks by key members of the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, there have been no signs of a resumption.
  

Reversing from a previous plan, the foreign ministry said that Yun will not attend the Munich conference, a decision made after other foreign high-level officials opted out of the international gathering.
  

The South Korean minister is scheduled to return home on Monday, the ministry added. (Yonhap)