South Korean and Russian national defense ministries held first defense strategic dialog in Russia on March 15 to form a military consensus to enhance military Cooperation between the two countries.
In this connection, the Korean National Defense Ministry announced on March 12 that "We and Russia agreed to begin the high-level channels of official dialog in 2007, which was decided at the working-level meeting between the two ministries, and, in 2009, double-checked at the two countries' defense ministers' talks. This was, in actuality, their first time to hold an actual defense strategic talk.
Im Kwan-bin, head of Korea's Defense Policies Department and his counterpart, Anatoli Antonov, deputy head of the Russian International Cooperation Department, discussed a plan on March 15 to improve the two defense ministries' military cooperation.
The two camps interchanged opinions about various pending issues, mutual concerns for national security and for international peace on the one hand, and, on the other, discussed a plan to hold the S. Korea-Russia dialog on a regular basis.
"We'd expect Russia to play a constructive role in further consolidating peace and security on the Korean Peninsular," said a Defense Ministry official, "and take this dialog as a good opportunity to further escalate the military cooperation between the two countries." Meanwhile, during his stay in Russia, Mr. Im visited Russian Academy of Military Sciences for March 14-16.