President Park Geun-hye met U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a regional conference in Myanmar on Wednesday, amid speculation that he would run for the presidency.
Her encounter with Ban drew keen interest from domestic media, as they met just days after a torrent of reports touted him as a possible presidential candidate for the 2017 election.
They ran into each other at a banquet hosted by Myanmar’s president for the leaders attending the East Asia Summit. The two exchanged greetings because they were attending the same event, Park’s office said. There was nothing more than that, it added.
The speculation on Ban running for the presidency rose after an opinion poll conducted last month. Nearly 40 percent of 1,000 respondents supported Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, as the next presidential candidate, while second-placed Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon garnered only 13.5 percent of support.
Ban denied the speculation and even issued a statement that it was not appropriate to link him to domestic politics.
Park has met Ban four times since entering office early last year. In September while Park was attending the U.N. General Assembly, the two held a separate meeting to discuss various issues including North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and measures to provide humanitarian aid to help people in the isolated regime.
By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)
