On August 16, Russian International Affairs Council held a roundtable on relations between Russia and Republic of Korea in the context of regional political processes and situtaion in the Korean Peninsula.
On August 16, Russian International Affairs Council held a roundtable on relations between Russia and Republic of Korea in the context of regional political processes and situtaion in the Korean Peninsula.
The event was attended by well-known Russian experts on Korea, political scientists and diplomats, among them RIAC Member Alexander Panov, Gleb Ivashentsov and Valery Sukhinin – all Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, as well as Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Evgeny Kanayev, Leading Researcher at RAS Institute of World Economy and International Relations. The South Korean delegation included representatives of major think tanks – Seoul National University and Catholic University of Korea – and top officials of South Korean Ministry of Foregn Affairs.
Opened by RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov and South Korean foreign minister in 2003-2004, Yoon Young-kwan, the roundtable incorporated three sections to cover Russian foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century, development of Russian-Korean relations, and Korean settlement.
During the discussion of Russia's role in global politics, Dr. Kortunov underlined that currently it seems difficult to range countries by their influence due to growing number of factors that define the states' status. For example, despite major geoplitical advantages, Russia's foreign trade is twice less than that of South Korea.
Russian and Korean experts agreed that the two countries should work harder to develop their economic and commercial relations, with the stable flow of Korean capital to Russia's eastern areas serving both to strengthen the bilateral relationship and boost development of Siberia and the Far East.
The roundtable was presented the preprint of RIAC's report "Russia-Republic of Korea: an Outlook for Biateral Relations".
Roundtable on relations between Russia and Republic of Korea
