President Yoon Seok-yeol and first lady Kim Kun-hee arrive at Seongnam Seoul Airport on the 10th to attend the NATO Summit in Lithuania and visit Poland, and greet Air Force Unit 1 before departure. Seongnam/Yonhap News
President Yoon Seok-yeol went on a tour of Lithuania and Poland on the 10th. After attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit and various bilateral meetings in Lithuania, he will make an official visit to Poland. The key question is what kind of discussion will take place at the Korea-Japan summit to be held during the NATO summit over the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
President Yoon departed for Vilnius, Lithuania on Air Force Unit 1 from Seoul Airport in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province on the afternoon of the same day. From this day, he will return to Korea on the 15th after completing the NATO summit, various bilateral talks, and an official visit to Poland for 4 nights and 6 days.
After shaking hands with the farewell guests in turn, President Yoon boarded a private plane with his wife, Kim Gun-hee. At the airport, people’s strength leadership, such as floor leader Yoon Jae-ok, as well as Vice Minister of Public Administration and Security Han Chang-seop, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Jang Ho-jin, who acted as ministers, appeared at the airport. In the presidential office, Chief of Staff Kim Dae-ki and Senior Secretary for Political Affairs Lee Jin-bok were seated.
President Yoon will first attend the NATO Summit held in Vilnius, Lithuania on the 10th and 12th (local time) as the heads of NATO’s four Asia-Pacific partners (AP4). He became the first Korean president to be invited to the NATO summit last year, and has been attending for the second year in a row. It is interpreted that he continues to narrow the distance with NATO, which is led by the United States and Western Europe, by advocating “value diplomacy,” which expands solidarity with countries pursuing common values such as freedom and democracy. President Yoon plans to present Korea’s contribution to Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, and ways to promote cooperation between Korea and NATO. A bilateral cooperation document between Korea and NATO covering 11 areas, including non-proliferation and cybersecurity, will also be adopted.
Along with this, President Yoon will hold individual bilateral meetings with leaders of 10 countries, including Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovakia, Estonia, Finland and Hungary, including Lithuania, the host country. In particular, the Korea-Japan summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was also invited as an AP4 leader, is attracting attention. The two leaders will meet again two months after the bilateral summit in Hiroshima, Japan in May. The issue of contaminated water at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which has been intensifying after the recent announcement of the final report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is also expected to come to the discussion table. Whether President Yoon can make a breakthrough in accordance with the principle of “priority to public safety” in complex domestic and foreign situations, such as growing domestic concerns and the trend of strengthening Korea-Japan and Korea-US-Japan cooperation, is considered a factor that will determine the success of the summit. .
On the 12th, he will move to Warsaw, Poland, and go on an official visit schedule at the state level. Starting with the official welcome ceremony on the 13th, a summit meeting with President Andrzej Duda and individual meetings with the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Speaker of the Senate will follow. It is the first official visit by a Korean president to Poland since 2009 in 14 years. The President’s office announced earlier that measures to strengthen cooperation in strategic areas such as defense, nuclear power, and infrastructure will be discussed along with the expansion of investment cooperation between the two countries. President Yoon plans to return to Korea on the 15th after attending a Korea-Polish business forum attended by the heads of both countries and a visit to Warsaw University.
On the other hand, President Yoon received a report that the torrential rain could continue ahead of the tour and said, “If even a small risk factor is detected from the beginning, I hope that you will respond excessively preemptively, such as quickly evacuating the residents from the dangerous area.” Spokesman Lee Do-woon said that he had instructed the government. President Yoon said, “I hope that related ministries, such as the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the Forest Service, centered on the Prime Minister, will once again reorganize dangerous areas such as landslides and low-lying areas, where human casualties are likely to occur, along with local governments, and thoroughly check evacuation plans for the elderly and the disabled. ”he said.
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2023-07-10 04:40:00
