U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he will visit South Korea next month to attend the third session of the Summit for Democracy, a U.S.-led multilateral platform meant to promote solidarity among democracies.
Blinken confirmed the plan to attend the gathering set to take place from March 18-20 as he held his first bilateral in-person talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul since Cho took office last month.
“I’m also grateful to Korea for hosting the next Summit for Democracy. This is something near and dear to the heart of President Biden,” Blinken said at the start of the talks at the State Department in Washington.
“We’re grateful that you’ve picked up the torch on the Summit for Democracy, and I very much look forward to being in South Korea and participating,” he added.
Blinken is expected to attend a ministerial segment of the forum on March 18. U.S. President Joe Biden is set to attend the summit virtually.
Blinken’s planned trip to Seoul would come just weeks after
this week’s bilateral meeting with Cho and their encounter on the margins of the Group of 20 gathering in Brazil last week — in an indication of continued high-level engagement between Seoul and Washington.
The United States hosted the first session of the summit in 2021. The second one was hosted jointly by the U.S., South Korea, Costa Rica, the Netherlands and Zambia.
Source: Yonhap News Agency