On the afternoon of the 27th, President Yoon Seok-yeol and his wife Kim Kun-hee departed for Madrid, Spain through Seoul Airport.
This is to attend the NATO Summit to be held in Madrid from the 29th to the 30th (local time).
President Yoon handles at least 14 diplomatic missions over 5 days and 3 nights.
It is President Yoon's first overseas visit and his debut on the stage of multilateral diplomacy, taking office on the 10th of last month.
This is the first time for a South Korean president to attend the NATO summit, one of the most representative military alliances in the West.
It is also a step distinct from the previous Korean presidents who all chose the United States for their first overseas tour after taking office.
Korea, along with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, were invited as partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
The President's Office is in a position to keep a certain distance from NATO's anti-China and anti-Russian stance on this tour.
Instead, we plan to focus on 'expanding and deepening our network' in areas such as economy, human rights, and technology with NATO member states in terms of 'comprehensive security'.
During this tour, President Yoon will hold 9 bilateral talks, ▲ NATO allies/partner country summit ▲ NATO Secretary-General meeting ▲ Spanish king meeting ▲ Korea, US, Japan trilateral summit ▲ Spanish businessmen luncheon, etc. .
Starting with Finland (28th), we will have summits with the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark (29th), and the Czech Republic and the UK (30th).
A brief meeting with the European Union (EU) Commission President and the leaders of Canada and Romania will be held.
'Sales diplomacy' is also centered on the economic and security agenda.
Representative discussions include nuclear export (Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands), semiconductors (Netherlands), defense industry (Poland), and renewable energy (Denmark).
The highlight is the Korea, U.S. and Japan trilateral summit held on the 29th at 2:30 pm (9:30 pm Korean time).
The Korea-U.S.-Japan summit will be held four years and nine months after the UN General Assembly in September 2017, in the early days of the Moon Jae-in administration.
President Yun, US President Joe Biden, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will discuss trilateral security cooperation to counter the ever-increasing military threat from North Korea.
Then, at the NATO Allies and Partners Summit to be held at 3 pm, I will give a three-minute speech to ask for the international community's support for the denuclearization of North Korea.
The Korea-Japan summit, which drew attention, was virtually canceled.
In particular, the brief meeting (fullside) between the leaders of Korea and Japan that was originally expected will not be held.
On this tour, Ms. Kun-hee Kim will also accompany her to attend the spouse's session.
President Yoon and his wife will attend a dinner hosted by the King of Spain and his wife (28th) and a Korean-Spanish dinner meeting (29th), and digest a separate spouse program.
(Planning: Jeong Yun-sik / Video coverage: the main culprit / Editing: Han Man-gil / Production: D Contents Planning Department)