1. Deputy Minister for Political Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kim Gunn had a virtual meeting with Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) leader of Brunei Darussalam Emaleen Abd Rahman Teo on May 25^th. Brunei Darussalam is the ASEAN Chair for 2021 and the Country Coordinator for ROK-ASEAN Dialogue Relations from August 2018 to August 2021.

o This meeting was held for pre-coordination with ASEAN Chair in advance of the beginning of this year’s ROK-ASEAN cooperation in the ASEAN process including ASEAN-related SOMs in June, foreign ministers’ meetings in August and summits in October, this year.

2. The two sides agreed to enhance cooperation for successful ASEAN-related summits this year.

o In particular, both sides agreed to take this year’s ROK-ASEAN Summit as an opportunity to take stock of the progress made in cooperation between the ROK and ASEAN under the New Southern Policy (NSP) and to affirm leaders’ commitment to further enhance cooperation.

o In addition, the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic swiftly and achieve economic recovery. To this end, both sides discussed ways to create synergy between Korea’s NSP and ASEAN’s Comprehensive Recovery Framework.

3. On the latest developments in Myanmar, Deputy Minister Kim mentioned that the Korean government welcomes Brunei’s active and constructive role such as arranging the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in April. He also stressed that the Korean government will actively support prompt and faithful implementation of the five-point consensus reached at the meeting.