PHNOM PENH– South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin will depart for Cambodia on Wednesday to attend a series of high-level meetings, hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), on pending regional and global issues.
He is scheduled to attend the South Korea-ASEAN foreign ministers’ session Thursday in Phnom Penh followed by an expanded gathering, also involving his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, which is called the ASEAN Plus Three meeting.
He plans to have a string of bilateral talks with foreign ministers from more than 10 countries, including ASEAN member states, on the sidelines of the events, as Seoul is seeking to bolster partnerships with the key regional bloc.
It remains unannounced whether Park will meet bilaterally with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.
On Friday, Park is slated to participate in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in which North Korea is a member as well. Pyongyang is reportedly sending An Kwang-il, ambassador to Indonesia who doubles as point man on ASEAN, instead of its top diplomat, Choe Son-hui, for the first in-person ARF session in three years, amid the reclusive nation’s coronavirus related-lockdowns. The annual ARF meetings were held virtually in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
Among other attendees are U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Park will also join the East Asia Summit (EAS) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which is expected to set the stage for discussions on such issues as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and Myanmar. It comes as Beijing-Washington stand-offs have intensified over U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Officials at Seoul’s foreign ministry said Park plans to use the ASEAN-hosted meetings to brief other participants on the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s policy on ASEAN and drum up international support for efforts to resolve the North Korea problem.
Park is to return home Saturday morning.
Source: Yonhap News Agency