“Agreement to Establish Director-General-Level Defense Industry Consultative Body Between Korea and NATO”
National Security Director Wi Seong-rak, who attended the NATO summit, announced on the 26th that “we have agreed to establish a director-level defense industry consultative body between Korea and NATO.”
Director Wi said this during a briefing held after attending the NATO summit, saying, “There was in-depth discussion on ways to increase substantive cooperation between Korea and NATO in various areas, and there was a lot of talk about cooperation in the defense industry in particular.”
Director Wi attended the NATO summit held in The Hague, Netherlands from the 24th to the 25th, and returned to the presidential office in Yongsan on the 26th to hold a briefing.
Director Wi first said, “I asked for NATO’s understanding regarding the unavoidable circumstances of President Lee’s inability to attend, and I reaffirmed our government’s will to continue to strengthen our partnership with NATO.”
In particular, he said, “I delivered the President’s personal letter to NATO Secretary General Radmila Mark Rutte containing our government’s will to strengthen the Korea-NATO partnership,” and “NATO highly evaluated Korea’s will to continuously develop its relationship with NATO.”
Director Wi also said that in his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “we discussed ways to further strengthen the Korea-U.S. alliance,” and “both sides agreed on the need to hold a Korea-U.S. summit as soon as possible and agreed to continue communicating in this regard.”
Director Wi also met with Maarten Boff, the Dutch Prime Minister’s Advisor to the Prime Minister, to ask for the Dutch side’s understanding regarding President Lee’s inability to attend and exchanged opinions on the direction of Korea-Netherlands cooperation.
In addition, Director Wi also had separate meetings with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya, and Czech National Security Advisor Tomasz Poyar to exchange opinions on the direction of development of bilateral relations and regional and international situations.
Meanwhile, Director Wi attended a special event between NATO and four Indo-Pacific partner countries and explained, “As a country that has overcome the crisis of democracy, the Republic of Korea has declared its will to play a responsible role in international peace and security.”
He added, “We have reaffirmed our government’s policy direction of strengthening cooperation with allies that share the values of democracy and peace and have the capacity to protect them.”
Director Wi evaluated, “Attending this summit went beyond announcing the return of the democratic Republic of Korea to the international community and became an opportunity to let the world know about the Republic of Korea’s renewed presence in all areas of diplomacy, security, economy, and industry.”
[Editor Lee]
