1. On November 3, Deputy Minister for Political Affairs Yoon Soon-gu had a meeting with Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia of the United States (U.S.) Alice G. Wells who was on a visit to the Kingdom of Thailand for the 35^th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits. During the meeting, the two sides exchanged views on ways to promote cooperation with the Central Asian countries and the regional situation.

2. Deputy Minister Yoon mentioned that the five Central Asia countries are core cooperation partners for the Republic of Korea (ROK)’s New Northern Policy and that, through its active summit diplomacy and policy focused on Central Asia, the ROK government has been promoting trust and strengthening substantive cooperation with the Central Asian countries that are deeply bonded with the ROK in terms of history and culture.

° The Deputy Minister explained that the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum, an annually convened consultative mechanism designed to enhance comprehensive exchanges, cooperation and friendship between the ROK and the five Central Asian countries, has made numerous achievements. This year, in particular, the Forum was held in Central Asia at the ministerial level for the first time ever since its launch, and the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum Secretariat, which is participated by the ROK and all the five Central Asian countries, was formally opened in Seoul in July 2018. As can be seen from this, the ROK and the five Central Asian countries are continuing to step up substantive cooperation through the Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum in a broad range of areas, including energy, infrastructure, information and communications technology (ICT), and education.

3. Acting Assistant Secretary Wells spoke highly of the level of substantive cooperation between the ROK and Central Asia and voiced hope for closer ROK-US communication in the course of promoting mutually beneficial cooperation with the five Central Asian countries in various areas.