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The Australian government is negotiating an enhanced bilateral framework with the Republic of Korea, in a continuation of discussions from the 2023 Korea-Pacific Islands Summit.
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Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles has just finished a two-day visit to the summit and held separate meetings with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Lee have agreed to work on an enhanced bilateral framework, building on the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation. An updated framework would allow both governments to strengthen the defence partnership and better respond to security challenges in the region.
Minister Marles said enhancing the bilateral framework would enable deeper cooperation, including towards interoperability between defence forces.
“Korea showing admirable leadership within the region in which both of our countries live,” he said in a media appearance on 29 May.
“It (the summit) shows was an engagement on the part of Korea and a willingness to do so with the Pacific, which I think was really well received by the countries of the Pacific.
“And it says a lot about how both Korea and Australia are seeing the world in very similar terms. We both see that our security lies in the collective security in the region; of the regions in which we live and the maintenance of the global rules-based order within those regions.
“That commonality of interest is going to drive a growing relationship between our two countries.”
During the visit, the Deputy Prime Minister held a roundtable with Korean defence industry representatives, discussing the opportunities out of the Defence Strategic Review and visited the Joint Security Area for a briefing on the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission.
He also met with Australian Defence Force personnel deployed to support demilitarisation activities on the Korean Peninsula.
