1. A delegation from the United Arab Emirates, led by Deputy Commandant of the National Defense College (NDC) Tareq Khalfan Abdullah Al-Zaabi and comprised of officials of the office of the President, the Navy, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Cooperation (ENEC), met with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea in a bilateral conference room on the 17^th floor of the Foreign Ministry building at 16:00-17:00, March 20.

° The UAE has been dispatching to the ROK some 20 public officials on an annual basis since 2017 with the aim to better understand the ROK, its “special strategic partner,” and to build cooperative networks between relevant government agencies and organizations of the two countries. The UAE delegation, led by the NDC Deputy Commandant, stays in the ROK for a week.

2. In his welcoming remarks, Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Yoon Soon-gu noted with appreciation that the ROK and the UAE had maintained their cooperative ties at the best level across the board over about 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1980. On that note, he suggested that over the next 40 years, the two countries take their ties to the level where their peoples could see for themselves the fruit of cooperation.

° The UAE delegation was then briefed on the ROK-UAE relations by the African and Middle Eastern Affairs Bureau. In the question-and-answer session that followed, the two sides engaged in a candid exchange of views on ways to advance the ROK-UAE “special strategic partnership” as well as situations in different regions of the world.

3. The UAE is one of the ROK’s close friends and its only “special strategic partner” in the Middle East. The two countries have been seeing their close cooperative ties advance on the back of the close mutual trust between the leaders of the two countries demonstrated by President Moon Jae-in’s official visit to the UAE in March 2018 and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s visit to the ROK in February 2019.

* unofficial translation