Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul has held talks with his Czech and Dutch counterparts to discuss bilateral cooperation on the sidelines of a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers, his office said Friday.
In his talks with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky on Thursday (local time) in Brussels, Cho expressed hopes for a South Korean company to take part in the Czech Republic’s project to build a new nuclear plant and asked for Lipavsky’s support, it said.
In January, the Czech government decided to invite bids for the project from South Korea’s Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. and France’s EDF, with a final decision expected to be made in June.
Lipavsky said Czech authorities will make a final decision through a fair and transparent process, and voiced hopes to expand bilateral cooperation in advanced technologies, such as small modular reactors and batteries, according to the ministry.
During separate talks between Cho and his Dutch counterpart, Hanke Bruins Slot, the two s
ides agreed to follow through on the bilateral agreements made during President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the Netherlands last December, including a semiconductor alliance.
In both meetings, Cho said that North Korea is threatening peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in Europe and the world through illegal military cooperation with Russia, and called for close coordination to stop their cooperation, according to the ministry.
He also emphasized the importance of close cooperation in the international community to implement sanctions against North Korea, it said.
South Korea was invited to the NATO ministerial meeting for the third year as one of the non-NATO partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
Source: Yonhap News Agency