Expert Park: South Korea should follow Trump's example and start a dialogue with the Russian Federation

According to the director of the Institute for Eurasian Strategic Studies, there is no new progress in relations between Russia and the Republic of Korea, despite the fact that a new government has been formed in Seoul

SEOUL, August 17. /TASS/. Director of the Institute of Eurasian Strategic Studies, former minister of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Moscow, Park Byong-hwan, believes that President of the Republic of Korea Lee Jae-myung should follow the example of his American counterpart Donald Trump and resume dialogue with Russia at a high and highest level.

As Park Byong-hwan told a TASS correspondent, there is no new progress in relations between Russia and the Republic of Korea, despite the fact that a new government has been formed in Seoul, and the conflict in Ukraine, in his opinion, is entering the final stage. On June 4, the new President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Jae-myung, took office.

"At a time when even the U.S. president, who is one of the parties to this conflict, meets with the Russian president and discusses bilateral economic cooperation, South Korea should at least start communicating through negotiations between foreign ministers if it is difficult to hold a telephone conversation at the level of heads of state," the expert said. On August 15, a meeting between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, took place at a military base in Alaska.

The director of the research institute noted that the participation of North Korean military personnel in the liberation of the Kursk region led to tensions in relations between Seoul and Moscow. "But the South Korean leadership needs to realize that the relationship between Korea and Russia and the relationship between North Korea and Russia is not necessarily a zero-sum game," the analyst concluded.

"Four neighboring powers"

After coming to power, Lee Jae-myung spoke by phone with a number of foreign heads of state, including Vietnam, Kazakhstan, the United States, the Philippines and Japan. In the Republic of Korea, it was accepted that the new president sends his envoys to key neighboring countries, which include China, Russia, the United States and Japan. This summer, it became known that the president selected envoys to Australia, Great Britain, Vietnam, the EU, India, Indonesia, Canada, Malaysia, Poland, France and Germany.

On August 13, the presidential administration announced that special envoys would not go to Japan and the United States, since in August Lee Jae-myung will hold separate summits with the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of the United States. Earlier it was reported that the South Korean authorities are considering the possibility of sending an envoy to Russia, but a number of media outlets admitted that this ultimately most likely may not happen. During the election campaign, Lee Jae-myung said that Seoul should not escalate unnecessary tensions in relations with Moscow.