By Sohn JiAe
Photos = Cheong Wa Dae

President Moon Jae-in, currently on a state visit to Russia, held talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on June 22. The two rounds of talks, the first being smaller in scale and the second one being expanded, produced a joint statement with a total of 32 concrete clauses, in which a lot of mutual cooperation was focused on “co-prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and Eurasia.”

President Moon said in a subsequent press conference that, “President Putin and I have agreed to increase our dialogue and cooperation for the goal of making it happen for the peninsula and the Eurasian region as a whole, to enjoy peace and prosperity.”

To this end, President Moon stressed the need for “trilateral economic cooperation among South Korea, North Korea and Russia.” To facilitate trilateral collaboration, the two leaders agreed that Korea and Russia would first launch joint research into railways, and electricity and gas grids.

The two presidents agreed that the materialization of such large-scale infrastructure projects across the Korean Peninsula would lead to peace and prosperity not only in the region, but across Northeast Asia, too. Based on this idea, they vowed to continue technology and manpower exchanges, as well as joint research, to connect the Khasan-Naseon railway line down to Korea and to connect the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) and the Trans-Korean Railway (TKR) networks.



The two leaders also touched on bilateral trade.

Acknowledging the importance of increasing trade between the two countries and, also, of getting rid of global trade barriers, the presidents agreed to expedite negotiations for the signing of a free trade agreement (FTA) covering services and investment.

In particular, the two sides mapped out a concrete action plan for the “nine-bridge strategy,” an initiative for cooperation on nine key areas that President Moon proposed at last year’s Eastern Economic Forum: shipbuilding, port construction, the development of a North Pole shipping route, gas exploration, railway construction, power generation, job creation, the farming industry, and the fishing industry.

“To achieve the goal of peace and co-prosperity across Eurasia and in the Russian Far East, we will work more closely than ever. I hope that this action plan will be adopted and implemented as soon as possible,” said President Moon.

President Putin called Korea a “strategic cooperative partner for Russia,” as he invited his Korean counterpart to attend next year’s Eastern Economic Forum again, slated from Sept. 11 to 13 in Vladivostok, to further develop the initiative that they’re working on. President Moon said he would reply to the request after checking his schedule in the second half of the year.

Among the agreements stipulated in the joint statement are the establishment of a new Korea-Russia innovative center in Korea and the expansion of the existing Korea-Russia Science Technology Cooperation Center in Moscow. There is also cooperation on health care via a Korea-model hospital scheduled to open in Skolkovo in Moscow, an international medical cluster. The two will also designate the year 2020 as the Year of Cultural Exchanges, in light of the fact that 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the modern Seoul-Moscow diplomatic relationship. Finally, the first Korea-Russia regional cooperation forum is scheduled to take place in the second half of the year.



jiae5853@korea.kr