1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will send former Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to France Park Heung-shin as the Foreign Minister’s special envoy to the 34th session of the Ministerial Conference of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), to be held in Paris from November 25 to 26.

o The ROK joined the OIF as an observer in November 2016, becoming the first Northeast Asian country to do so.

※ Special envoy Park Heung-shin served as Ambassador to France from 2010 to 2012, and graduated from the National School of Administration (ENA) Graduate School in France.

2. In the upcoming meeting, which marks the first ministerial conference since the ROK joined the organization as an observer last year, special envoy Park will deliver special remarks, in which he will talk about the ROK’s efforts to respond to climate change and implement green growth strategies in regard to the themes for the meeting (blue economy, green economy). He will also ask for cooperation from the OIF to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully and to make the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games a “peace Olympics.”

3. On the sidelines of the forthcoming meeting, special envoy Park will meet with key figures in France, including former Minister of State for State Reform and Simplification Jean-Vincent Placé, director for basic research of the Atomic Energy Commission Vincent Berger, and Managing Director of the International University Campus in Paris Carine Camby, and exchange views on ways to strengthen the comprehensive partnership between the ROK and France.

4. The special envoy’s participation in the meeting is expected to serve as an opportunity to reaffirm the commitment of the ROK, the first Northeast Asian country to join the OIF, to strengthen networks with French-speaking countries, and to further promote the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games through the network of 274 million French speakers around the world.


* unofficial translation