South Korea on Saturday hailed a resolution by the United Nations' nuclear energy agency expressing "deep and increasing concern" about Iran's nuclear program.

The resolution was adopted on Friday during a meeting in Vienna of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"We are in full sympathy with the concerns raised by the international community about Iran's nuclear program as a government facing North Korea's nuclear issue, which is a serious challenge to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and the biggest threat to the security of Northeast Asia," the government said in a statement issued in the name of a foreign ministry spokesman.

"We hope Iran will remove misgivings in the international community about its nuclear development program as soon as possible by faithfully carrying out the resolution by the U.N. Security Council," the spokesman, Cho Byung-jae said.

"The South Korean government fully supports relevant countries' efforts to peacefully settle the Iranian nuclear issue," he added.

(Yonhap News)