President Moon Jae-in, who is visiting Singapore, shared his plans to build closer economic ties between South Korea and the 10 ASEAN member nations in a speech to mark thirty years of diplomatic relations between Korea and the Southeast Asian bloc.
The president highlighted the positive trajectory in recent months, including the surge in trade volume between Korea and ASEAN, which reached 120-billion U.S. dollars this year in the period up until September.
President Moon mentioned the progress his administration has made since introducing the 'New Southern Policy' aimed at strengthening political and economic ties between Korea and South and Southeast Asia.
He also unveiled his plans for future cooperation, including holding a special Korea-ASEAN Summit next year in Seoul.
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the U.S. is looking forward to rescheduling its high-level talks with North Korea when the time is right.
She added that the meeting is important to Washington, and that they are in regular communication with the North, emphasizing that the two sides remain in contact.
The meeting was supposed to take place in New York last Thursday, between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea's vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee Kim Young-chol.
The two were to discuss North Korea's denuclearization and the planned 2nd Pyeongyang-Washington summit, until the talks were postponed just a day before the meeting, allegedly due to North Korea's request for more time.
A seven-member, high-level delegation from Pyeongyang including two senior North Korean officials who have been involved in Pyeongyang-Washington negotiations and inter-Korean discussions respectively is making a four-day visit to the South starting today.
They're members of the North's Korea-Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, coming primarily to attend an international conference on Friday.
The conference is hosted by a South Korean organization and Gyeonggi-do Province and participants from the two Koreas AND Japan will be discussing the forced mobilization of Koreans during Japan's colonial rule.
Source: Arirang News
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