South Korea will host meetings of senior officials and foreign ministers from fellow middle powers in 2015, the country’s foreign ministry said Sunday.
Seoul will host the senior officials’ meeting (SOM) of MIKTA in February next year, followed by a gathering of foreign ministers from MIKTA members in May, according to the ministry.
MIKTA is the acronym of its member states: Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia. It’s an informal cooperative channel established in September last year to represent the interests of middle power states and to strengthen coordination on global matters of common interest.
The foreign ministry said Yun Byung-se, the South Korean foreign minister, and his counterparts from the other MIKTA states met Saturday on the sidelines of the ongoing Group of 20 summit in Australia and agreed upon holding next year’s meetings in Seoul.
Also during Saturday’s talks, Yun announced Seoul will open MIKTA’s website (www.mikta.org) sometime in the first half of next year, according to the ministry.
The ministry added that the five partners also agreed to begin exchange programs for junior-level diplomats and select a research institute in each of the five countries to form a network of think tanks that will present ways to further develop MIKTA. (Yonhap)
