He said the president will join as a guest of honor on
Wednesday Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in the inauguration
of the Janadriyah festival on the outskirts of Riyadh.
Though there have been reports that the Korean president
visit to the Kingdom intended to secure a stable oil supply in the light of the
proposed oil embargo on Iranian oil, Kim stressed the visit came mainly to
express dedication to the Saudi leadership and nation for honoring Korea as the
guest country of the festival.
"During the visit there will be discussions on the
possibilities of signing some agreements, but the key purpose of the visit is
to express the dedication to Saudis for honoring Korea as the guest country in
the prestigious Saudi national festival of Al-Janadriyah, while also marking
the 50th anniversary of relations between the two countries," the
ambassador said.
"We don’t have any thorny issues to tackle. The
relationship between our two countries developed into an excellent one within
the last 50 years in all fields — politics, energy, construction, trade,"
he added.
"This time Korea wants, through this visit, to expand
the idea of cooperation with the Kingdom to catch up in the other fields like
culture, education, health for the coming 50 years, for the benefit of the
coming generations."
The envoy highlighted some of the features of the Korean
pavilion in the Janadriyah festival. "The pavilion will feature Korean
culture, history and tradition. For this purpose we took into consideration the
design of the pavilion to avoid making it a display venue for our modern
products to our friends in the Kingdom," he said.
"Rather, we made it a manifestation of the dialogue
between Korean culture, history, nature and language, through its theme, the
water, the vital element of life. And for this, we have used state-of-the-art
interactive technologies and devices. The intro wall to the pavilion will show
the concept of the theme," he stressed.
"Also, the pavilion will have a time tunnel that will
introduce the exchange of history between the Korean and the Arab world,
especially the Arabian Peninsula from the past to the present, including the
Islamic era. And there will be folklore and modern dances as part of the
pavilion activities. In a gesture of respect to the Saudi culture, the folk
dances will be performed live by Korean dancers while the modern dances will be
performed by robots," he added.
"While we are preparing for our participation in the
Janadriyah festival, we found out that we as Koreans share with the Saudis
common social and moral values and at the top is the filial values to the
parents, respect to elders in family, tribes, and community and generosity to
guests. Besides these shared values, we hope the pavilion will bring us closer
and contribute to the dream of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King
Abdullah on interfaith and cultural dialogue."
