S.Korean President in NY to attend UNGA

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IANS | 20 Sep, 2022
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has arrived in New York to attend the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and hold a series of summits on the sidelines, including a highly anticipated meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The New York visit, the second stop on Yoon's three-nation swing, follows his attendance at Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral in London and comes ahead of a summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, reports Yonhap News Agency.

The President will stay in the city for four days and deliver his first address to the UNGA on Tuesday before engaging in bilateral meetings with his US counterpart Joe Biden, Kishida and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, among others.

Yoon will make his debut on the UN stage with a speech outlining his vision for increasing solidarity among freedom-loving nations, according to his office.

The speech will also likely underscore South Korea's commitment to defending peace against the threat of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, together with allies such as the United States.

The meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister will be the first summit between the two nations since December 2019, raising hope of improving relations badly frayed over wartime forced labour and other issues related to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Details of the meeting, including the date and agenda, have not been confirmed, but South Korean officials maintain it will go ahead as agreed upon.

Japan, meanwhile, has expressed reservations about holding a summit before progress is made on the issue of compensation for Korean forced labour victims, according to Japanese news reports.

Yoon and Kishida met during the NATO summit in Madrid in June, including in trilateral talks with Biden, but did not sit down for one-on-one talks.

The meeting with Biden will be Yoon's second since taking office in May, following their summit in Seoul that month.