Brussels: Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul will travel to Belgium later this week to attend the foreign ministers' meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), his office said Tuesday. Cho will participate in the session on NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners in Brussels on Thursday (local time), marking the fourth consecutive time a South Korean top diplomat has attended the multilateral gathering, the foreign ministry in Seoul confirmed.
According to Yonhap News Agency, along with NATO allies, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand-NATO's four Indo-Pacific partner countries, referred to as "IP4"-will attend the meeting. The European Union and Ukraine will also participate in discussions on defense and regional security cooperation. The ministry expressed that the gathering is expected to serve as an important occasion to shape strategic cooperation with NATO in areas such as defense and to strengthen the partnership with NATO, with which they share core values.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Cho plans to hold separate bilateral and other forms of talks with his counterparts from participating countries and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the ministry added.