SEOUL– A senior White House official is in Seoul as part of a U.S. advance team to prepare a summit between incoming South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden next month, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
Edgard Kagan, senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council, has been in Seoul since around Saturday for meetings with the transition team’s key members in charge of foreign policy to discuss details for the proposed summit, according to an informed source.
Biden has widely been expected to visit South Korea before or after he travels to Japan to attend a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue meeting around May 24, with May 20-22 considered the likely dates of his visit.
Details are still being set up, including the schedule and the summit venue, as Yoon will have relocated the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae and into what is now the defense ministry compound.
The summit is set to become the earliest-ever South Korea-U.S. summit to take place following a South Korean president’s inauguration. Yoon will take office May 10.
Source: Yonhap News Agency