President Yoon Meets with Australian Prime Minister... "Expecting Close Cooperation with New Governments of Both Countries"

"Congratulations on achieving good results in the general election"... Focused discussion on regional cooperation plan

President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is visiting Spain to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, shakes hands with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the South Korea-Australia summit on the 28th (local time).

(Madrid, Spain = Asia Economy Reporter Bae Kyunghwan) President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is staying in Madrid, Spain to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, held a summit meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the afternoon of the 28th (local time). At this meeting, President Yoon stated, "Since both countries have newly inaugurated governments, I hope we will closely cooperate to further develop bilateral relations."

The meeting with Prime Minister Albanese was President Yoon's first official schedule at NATO. Originally, President Yoon was scheduled to start his first meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinist?, but it was canceled due to scheduling issues, leading to the summit with Prime Minister Albanese instead.

During the meeting held at a downtown hotel in Madrid, President Yoon greeted, "Congratulations on the good results in the general election." Earlier, Prime Minister Albanese took office last month, similar to President Yoon who also assumed office last month. On the morning of the same day, the presidential office explained, "Australia also inaugurated a new government on May 23, and our government was inaugurated on May 10, so we plan to discuss regional cooperation in line with the inauguration of the new governments of both countries."

Attending the meeting were Foreign Minister Park Jin, First Deputy Director of the National Security Office Kim Tae-hyo, Diplomatic Secretary Lee Moon-hee, Senior Secretary for Economic Affairs Choi Sang-mok, and Industrial Policy Secretary Kang Kyung-sung. The discussion focused on how to develop the comprehensive strategic partnership between Korea and Australia on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of diplomatic relations.

Australia was invited as an Asia-Pacific partner country to this NATO summit along with Korea, Japan, and New Zealand. In particular, since Australia is a member of the Quad, a four-nation military consultative group formed by the United States together with Japan and India to counter China's maritime expansion policy, it is known that the meeting also discussed ways to closely cooperate within the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), launched under U.S. leadership to check China.