Thousands of South Koreans have safely ended a religious event in Jerusalem, to the relief of a Seoul government anxious over security conditions in the volatile Middle East.

Some two-thousand-300 South Korean Christians marched on Monday for three hours through an approximately ten-kilometer stretch between Jerusalem and Bethlehem in a bid to promote peace in the Middle East.

The South Korean Embassy in Israel said that both Israeli and Palestinian authorities had provided tightened security by setting up a joint security area along the march route.

Earlier, South Korea issued a strong advisory against non-essential travel to Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, following June's abduction and murder of one of its citizens by Islamist terrorists in Iraq.