President Roh Departs Tomorrow

President Roh Moo-hyun will be departing on November 28 to participate in the 8th “Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) + Korea, China, Japan” summit conference held at Vientiane, Laos from November 29 to 30. After the conference, President Roh will tour three European countries—the United Kingdom, Poland and France—from November 30 to December 7.

President Roh is planning to announce at the Korea-ASEAN summit conference that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between Korea-ASEAN will be formally lodged starting next year.

President Roh is holding a three-party summit conference with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on November 29 and will tune opinions for the swift reopening of the North Korean atomic energy six-party talks.

From November 30 to December 3, President Roh will visit the United Kingdom for the first time as a national guest by the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Jung-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com