Saudi Arabia and South Korea: A fruitful and enduring partnership

Special Saudi Arabia and South Korea: A fruitful and enduring partnership
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Seoul on Nov. 17, 2022. (South Korean Presidential Office/Yonhap via AP)
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Updated 18 November 2022
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Saudi Arabia and South Korea: A fruitful and enduring partnership

Saudi Arabia and South Korea: A fruitful and enduring partnership
  • Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accompanied by high-level delegation including ministers of energy, interior, national guard and foreign affairs
  • With 40 shared projects, South Korea is among the countries cooperating with the Kingdom to help achieve the aims of Vision 2030

RIYADH: The arrival of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Seoul on an official visit to South Korea has underscored the depth of the bilateral relationship 60 years after the two countries established diplomatic ties.

The crown prince and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol held talks on Thursday, during which they both pledged to strengthen relations in the fields of energy, defense industry and building projects.

Clearly, relations between the two G20 members have come a long way since 1962, when Saudi Arabia forged formal ties with the Republic of South Korea during the reign of King Saud bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and the presidency of Park Chung-hee.

South Korea opened its embassy in Saudi Arabia in 1973, while the Kingdom’s diplomatic mission in Seoul opened the following year.




South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, left, welcoming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Seoul. (Saudi Royal Palace)

The partnership assumed a strategic dimension in 2016 when the Saudi crown prince held talks with then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye, on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Hangzhou, China.

The two leaders acknowledged the need to activate the work of the Saudi-Korean Joint Committee to enhance cooperation in various fields and encourage stronger trade relations. The committee was established more than 40 years ago to strengthen relations and common interests.

In 2017, the two countries launched the Saudi-Korean Vision 2030, forming a joint committee of representatives from relevant government agencies to review the partnership, approve projects, and implement plans.

Vision 2030 is Saudi Arabia’s social reform and economic diversification agenda, launched in 2016 to help wean the Kingdom’s economy off hydrocarbons and to promote youth and women’s participation in new sectors, from leisure and tourism to renewable energy.

South Korea is among eight countries cooperating with the Kingdom to help achieve the aims of Vision 2030, working on 40 shared projects and initiatives.

INNUMBERS

• 60 years since Saudi Arabia and South Korea established formal ties

• $26,506m volume of trade between the countries in 2021

• 132 South Korean investments in Saudi Arabia valued at $3.66 billion

These projects are divided into five sub-groups: energy and industrialization; infrastructure and smart infrastructure; digital transformation and capacity building; healthcare and life sciences; and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The crown prince’s visit to South Korea in June 2019, at the invitation of then-President Moon Jae-in, marked another important turning point in relations, with an agreement to expand the scope of cooperation in all aspects of bilateral relations.

Those efforts appear to be paying off. The volume of trade between the Kingdom and South Korea in 2021 amounted to roughly $26,506 million.




S. Korea’s strengths in shipping and manufacturing underpin trade ties with Saudi Arabia, and plans to boost investment in energy, defense and green initiatives will forge wider economic links. (AFP)

The balance of trade that year recorded a surplus in favor of the Kingdom at a value of $19,646 million, with Saudi exports worth $23,076 million and imports from South Korea valued at $3,430 million.

Three of the most prominent Saudi companies have made investments in South Korea worth $6.35 billion. Chief among these is Saudi Aramco, which is active in the coal, oil and gas sectors, with investments worth $5.18 billion.

Others include SABIC, which is active in the chemicals sector, with investments worth $1 billion, and the Advanced Petrochemical Company, which works in the plastics sector and has investments amounting to $168 million.

South Koreans have made 132 investments in the Kingdom with a total value of approximately $3.66 billion. These cover sectors as varied as mining and quarrying, electricity, gas, air conditioning, transportation and storage, manufacturing and construction.

The companies involved in the investments include Samsung, International Maritime Industries, Rabigh Electricity Company, Alia Polymers Company, and Saudi Steel Pipes Company.




Transport makes up a sizeable chunk of trade between Saudi Arabia and South Korea.  (AFP file photo)

Samsung Engineering and Hyundai Group obtained a contract to implement work at the Jafurah gas field project in Saudi Arabia with a value of more than $11 billion.

In 2021, the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property registered 447 industrial models, 2,881 trademarks, and 543 patents among the filings of Korean companies. Samsung Electronics alone has 145 registered industrial models, while Daewoong Pharmaceutical has the highest number of registered patents, 16 in total.

Saudi Arabia and South Korea also share compatible plans to combat climate change, with the latter aiming to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and the Kingdom aiming for the same goal by 2060.




South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, right, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Seoul during their meeting.

In January of this year, on the sidelines of the Saudi-Korean Investment Forum in Riyadh, attended by former President Moon Jae-in, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Korea’s POSCO, and the Construction Division of Samsung C&T announced a tripartite memorandum of understanding to develop a green hydrogen export project.

There is more to the relationship than business and investments, however. The two nations have forged significant cultural ties since the Kingdom opened its doors to entertainment, concerts and world cinema.




South Korean K-pop bands are frequent performers in the Kingdom, a sign of stronger cultural ties between the two countries. (AFP file photo)

K-pop stars Super Junior and BTS have performed in the Kingdom and Korean films and television series have graced its screens, provoking a growing interest in South Korea’s cultural offerings among young Saudis.

Around 175 Saudi students are now studying in South Korea, including many on special scholarships.

Given this scale of investment and the number of cultural exchanges underway, the Saudi-South Korean relationship is likely to be further strengthened by the crown prince’s ongoing visit.

 


Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians seek guarantees before handing weapons to Azerbaijan

Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians seek guarantees before handing weapons to Azerbaijan
Updated 31 sec ago
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Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians seek guarantees before handing weapons to Azerbaijan

Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians seek guarantees before handing weapons to Azerbaijan
  • Ethnic Armenian official: weapons surrender yet to be worked out
  • Talks held after Azerbaijan reclaims control of Karabakh
GORIS: Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh need security guarantees before giving up their weapons, an adviser to their leader said on Thursday, a day after Azerbaijan declared it had brought the breakaway region back under its control.
Karabakh Armenian authorities accused Azerbaijan of violating a cease-fire agreed on Wednesday after a lightning Azerbaijani offensive forced the separatists to agree to disarm.
Baku’s defense ministry said the allegation that its forces had broken the cease-fire was “completely false.” Two sources in Karabakh’s main city told Reuters they had heard heavy gunfire on Thursday morning, but it was not clear who was firing.
The shooting and the conflicting narratives highlighted the potential for further bloodshed despite a deal agreed 24 hours earlier that Azerbaijan said had restored its sovereignty over Karabakh after 35 years of conflict.
“We have an agreement on the cessation of military action but we await a final agreement — talks are going on,” David Babayan, an adviser to Nagorno-Karabakh’s breakaway ethnic Armenian leader Samvel Shahramanyan, told Reuters. “We need to talk through a lot of many questions and issues.”
“There has not been a final agreement yet.”
When asked about giving up weapons, Babayan said his people could not be left to die, so would security guarantees first.
“A whole host of questions still need to be resolved,” he said.
Talks took place on Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh between Azerbaijan and representatives of the Republic of Artsakh, as the Karabakh Armenians call themselves.
The Artsakh authorities said in a post on Telegram that no final agreement had been reached.

“CRIMINAL JUNTA CONSIGNED TO HISTORY“
Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has enjoyed de facto independence since breaking away in a war in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed.
Restoring control has been a cherished dream for Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who launched a lightning military operation on Tuesday that quickly broke through Karabakh Armenian lines.
In a speech to the nation on Wednesday night, he said Azerbaijan had triumphed with an “iron fist.”
“After the surrender of the criminal junta, this source of tension, this den of poison, has already been consigned to history,” Aliyev said, focusing his anger on Karabakh’s leadership.
He said the region’s ethnic Armenians would enjoy full educational, cultural and religious rights. All ethnic groups and faiths would be united as “one fist — for Azerbaijan, for dignity, for the Motherland.”
Defeat is a bitter pill for the separatist Karabakh leadership and for Armenia, which helped its kin in the enclave to maintain their autonomy and fought two wars with Azerbaijan in the space of 30 years.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan acknowledged in a speech to mark his country’s independence day that Armenians were going through “untold physical and psychological suffering.”
But he said that, to guarantee its survival, his country badly needed peace: “an environment that is free from conflicts, inter-state, inter-ethnic conflicts.”

AZERBAIJAN OFFERS ARMENIA PEACE DRAFT
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday that Armenia’s restraint in not trying to block Baku’s offensive would
remove an obstacle
to peace between the two Caucasus neighbors. An aide to Aliyev said Baku had given Yerevan a new draft peace agreement, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Russia, which has peacekeepers in the region, also did nothing to stand in the way of the Azerbaijani offensive — a source of bitter resentment to many Armenians who looked to Moscow as an ally and protector.
In the Armenian capital Yerevan, thousands gathered on Wednesday to denounce their government’s failure to protect Karabakh.
Many demanded the resignation of Pashinyan, who presided over defeat to Azerbaijan in a six-week war in 2020 that paved the way for this week’s loss of Karabakh but nevertheless won re-election several months later.
In Karabakh, many ethnic Armenians have fled their homes in the past three days, some massing at the airport in the main city and others taking shelter with Russian peacekeepers.
Residents of Stepanakert, which Azerbaijan calls Khankendi, said there was no electricity, shops were bare, and people were lighting fires in courtyards to try to cook whatever food they could find. Authorities said they would hand out free food.
“There are a lot of displaced people from the villages, they were just moved to the city and had nowhere to spend the night,” said Gayane Sargsyan, who runs a wellness business in the city.
In a voice message, she told Reuters that rumors were swirling about what would happen next and people were in “chaos and bewilderment.”

King Charles calls for new Franco-British entente for sustainability

King Charles calls for new Franco-British entente for sustainability
Updated 48 min 40 sec ago
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King Charles calls for new Franco-British entente for sustainability

King Charles calls for new Franco-British entente for sustainability
  • Charles arrived in Paris on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, in a show of pageantry and symbolism meant to turn the page on years of rocky relations
PARIS: King Charles said on Thursday that Britain and France had a shared responsibility to protect democracy in Europe and to ensure the world tackles climate change, in what he called an “entente for sustainability.”
Charles arrived in Paris on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, in a show of pageantry and symbolism meant to turn the page on years of rocky relations between the two nations since Britain voted to leave the European Union.
“Together, our potential is limitless,” Charles said in flawless French, giving the first speech by a British monarch to representatives of both houses of the French parliament.
“That’s why we must cherish and take care of our entente cordiale. For future generations, so it becomes an entente for sustainability to tackle more efficiently the global urgency in terms of climate and diversity,” he said.
The so-called Entente Cordiale was an alliance dating from 1904 that put a stop to centuries of military rivalries between France and Britain to see the two European powers fight on the same side during two world wars.
With Russia’s “unjustified aggression” in invading Ukraine 18 months ago, the two countries were once again facing war on the continent, he said.
“Together, we are unshakable in our determination that Ukraine will prevail,” Charles said.
The warm words, visits and symbolic gestures come after several tense years over the negotiation of Britain’s exit in 2020 from the European Union, and after that, rows over issues ranging from immigration to the sale of submarines.
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss once said the jury was out on whether France was a friend or foe, before settling on calling it a friend last year. Her successor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, visited France in March to kick off what he called an “entente renewed.”
“We must reinvigorate our friendship so that it is up to the challenges of the 21st century,” Charles said in a toast at a state banquet held at the Palace of Versailles the day before.
Later on Thursday, Charles, together with his wife Queen Camilla, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, will visit Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris to view restoration works following a massive blaze in 2019 that destroyed its roof.
The king is keen to walk in his mother footsteps and has referred to Elizabeth’s deep affection for France.

Former UK soldier pleads not guilty to prison escape

Former UK soldier pleads not guilty to prison escape
Updated 59 min 37 sec ago
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Former UK soldier pleads not guilty to prison escape

Former UK soldier pleads not guilty to prison escape
  • The BBC has reported he was accused of gathering intelligence for Iran
  • After a four-day nationwide manhunt, police said he was recaptured by a plain clothes officer while cycling alongside a canal

LONDON: A former British soldier charged with terrorism and Official Secret Act offenses pleaded not guilty on Thursday to breaking out of prison and going on the run.
Prosecutors say Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, escaped from London’s Wandsworth prison on Sep. 6 by attaching himself to the underside of a food delivery truck.
After a four-day nationwide manhunt, police said he was recaptured by a plain clothes officer while cycling alongside a canal in west London.
Khalife, wearing a blue and yellow sweatshirt, appeared by videolink at the Old Bailey on Thursday and pleaded not guilty to one count of escaping from lawful custody.
He was previously in custody awaiting trial on a charge of obtaining information from the Ministry of Defense’s Joint Personnel Administration System, a charge under the Terrorism Act, while he was based at barracks in central England in 2021.
Khalife is also accused of staging a bomb hoax by placing three canisters with wires on a desk and a further charge of obtaining information which might be “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.”
The BBC has reported he was accused of gathering intelligence for Iran.


India suspends visa services for Canadian citizens

India suspends visa services for Canadian citizens
Updated 21 September 2023
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India suspends visa services for Canadian citizens

India suspends visa services for Canadian citizens
  • On Monday, Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in slaying of Sikh leader
  • India has expelled a senior Canadian diplomat and is accusing Canada of interfering in its internal affairs

NEW DELHI: India has suspended visa services for Canadian citizens from Thursday, visa consultancy service provider BLS International said on its website, citing a notice from the Indian mission.

Canada said on Monday that it was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia in June.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has categorically rejected Canada’s suspicions that Indian agents had links to the murder.

BLS International said that the notice from the Indian mission cited “operational reasons” for suspension of visa services “till further notice.”

On Tuesday India expelled one of Canada’s top diplomats, ramping up a confrontation between the two countries.

Canada has yet to provide any evidence of Indian involvement, but if true it would mark a major shift for India, whose security and intelligence branches have long been significant players in South Asia, and are suspected in a number of killings in Pakistan. But arranging the killing of a Canadian citizen in Canada, home to nearly 2 million people of Indian descent, would be unprecedented.

India, though, has accused Canada for years of giving free rein to Sikh separatists, including Nijjar.


Mauritania is achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals: President

Mauritania is achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals: President
Updated 20 min 16 sec ago
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Mauritania is achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals: President

Mauritania is achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals: President

WASHINGTON: Mauritania has made significant progress in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and ensuring the nation develops a resilient economy, President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani said at the UN on Wednesday.

Speaking during the General Debate of the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, he said: “Our world is going through overlapping crises such as poverty, high inflation and violence. However, our fate is intertwined, therefore we should accelerate sustainable development goals by 2030.”

The SDGs are 17 inter-linked objectives that cover poverty, education, healthcare, economic growth, gender equality, peace and justice. 

Ghazouani said Mauritania has made the implementation of the UN’s SDGs the main goal of its developmental efforts.

“We remain hopeful that depending on our collective capacity and multilateralism we can find (an) effective mechanism for funding sustainable development,” he added.

He said that despite regional and international crises, his government was close to meeting key SDG indicators including universal healthcare for citizens, and improving agricultural production.

He said his government was “working on strengthening the rule of law and social cohesion and good governance, human rights and equality. 

“We are fighting against all contemporary forms of slavery,” he said.

Speaking on the impact of climate change, Ghazouani called on the world’s industrialized nations to honor their commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions and the pledges they made during the Paris Summit that took place earlier this year.

He said that the upcoming international climate change conference in the UAE, or COP28, was a “great source of hope” for all nations.

On the political front, the Mauritanian leader said his country continues to support the Palestinian people and their right to have a free and independent state.

“I would like reaffirm the right of the Palestinian people to have their own independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital according to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations,” he said.

He said his country supports all solutions that will preserve the peace, stability and territorial integrity of fellow Arab nations, including the embattled countries of Syria, Yemen and Libya.

He also called for an end to all hostilities in Sudan, and for the parties to reach a political solution to the current civil war that broke out this year between the government and its former ally the Rapid Support Forces.

He added that his country supports the UN’s efforts to find a lasting solution to the conflict in the neighboring Western Sahara region between Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the vast territory, and the Polisario Front which seeks to establish an independent nation.