President Park Geun-hye held a summit meeting on May 14 with her Bulgarian counterpart, Rosen Plevneliev, currently in Korea on an official visit. They agreed to upgrade their existing bilateral relationship and to turn it into a "future-oriented comprehensive partnership."

During the joint press conference at Cheong Wa Dae, President Park said, "This year marks the 25th year of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Korea and Bulgaria. President Plevneliev's visit to Korea this year is of great meaning to the development of bilateral relations. Today, we discussed ways to enhance our traditional cooperative relationship and how to strengthen the partnership."



President Park said, "We agreed that the two nations would strengthen cooperation on a wider scope of fields so that we can better benefit from each other's merits, including renewable energy, defense and security, science and technology, information communications technology, agriculture and the environment, as well as education and the arts. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed today covering science and technology is a good example from which the two nations can get win-win results, benefitting from Bulgaria's outstanding status in the basic sciences and Korea's competitiveness in applied sciences.

President Park also said, "Both of our peace-loving nations agreed to cooperate on international peace and security, and to make shared efforts to help North Korea give up its nuclear weapons and become a responsible member of the international community."

"Our two nations may also need to work together on regional peace and to give humanitarian support to regions suffering from disputes or damaged by terrorism," she said.



Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said, "I am happy to be in Korea this year, as it marks the 25th year of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties. The bilateral relationship will further be strengthened with the 'future-oriented comprehensive partnership' agreement we signed here today. Korea is a priority to us among Asian nations, and we wish that the volume of bilateral trade would be further expanded."



The Bulgarian president emphasized that the two nations can enhance economic cooperation in the areas of infrastructure, energy, transportation, logistics, vehicles, R&D, agriculture, food, outsourcing and tourism. He said, "We are pleased with Korea's suggestion to cooperate on the areas of agriculture and food. There are opportunities for Korean companies to take part in energy and infrastructure projects in Bulgaria."

He went on to say that, "We actively support policies carried out by President Park regarding the peaceful unification of Korea and in forging an enduring peace on the Korean Peninsula. I am very honored to be in Korea and feel quite close with the country."

By Jeon Han, Lee Seung-ah
Photos: Jeon Han
Korea.net Staff Writers
hanjeon@korea.kr