1. On June 13, the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo held the first-ever high-level meeting with his counterparts from the four member countries of the Visegrad Group -- Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.

2. The Republic of Korea, which has focused on promoting its relations with the EU as a whole as well as with individual countries in Europe, has sought to expand its horizon of diplomacy with Europe. In that light, the meeting carries significance as the first step to set up a channel for regular dialogue with the Visegrad Group, one of the major regional consultative mechanisms of Europe.

° The meeting can be seen as part of the ROK government’s ongoing efforts to increase its channels of dialogue with key consultative mechanisms in different regions and with middle power countries.

3. In the meeting, the two sides shared the view that in order to lay the ground for a peaceful unification on the Korean Peninsula, the member countries of the Visegrad Group should share with the ROK their experiences of successful regime transitions, and the ROK should draw lessons about the unification process from such experiences. They agreed to continue discussions on specific ways to that end.

° In view of the need for the ROK and the Visegrad Group countries, as middle power countries in Northeast Asia and Europe, respectively, to better understand the situations of each other’s regions and the world, they agreed to exchange views on key issues concerning their regions as well as the world in their meetings.

4. The two sides attached significance to the meeting in that it took place in the year marking the 25th anniversary of the ROK diplomatic relations with Central and Eastern European countries. They agreed to work more closely together in economy and broaden the scope of their substantive cooperation to include culture, academic matters, energy and development, among others.

5. In addition, the two sides discussed in depth the possibility of upgrading the level of the ROK-Visegrad consultative channel to the ministerial level in the future. 


                Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation