14ymedio, Madrid, 13 June 2023 — Cuba and South Korea, which do not have diplomatic relations, held talks last month “to discuss the strengthening of trade,” as reported on Tuesday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Asian country and picked up by the Yonhap agency.
The meeting took place between the South Korean Foreign Minister, Park Jin, and the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Josefina Vidal, according to the agency of diplomatic sources, when Park attended the meeting of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), held in Antigua, Guatemala, last May.
In a press conference, the spokesman of the South Korean Foreign Ministry, Lim Soo-suk, said that “both parties exchanged views on mutual interests, including cooperation at the ACS level.”
Yonhap’s note highlights that the meeting, “not announced,” is the first high-level contact between the two countries since the one that occurred in May 2018, between the then South Korean Chancellor, Kang Kyung-wha, and her Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez.
The Island is the only Latin American state with which South Korea does not have diplomatic relations, and, in addition, Cuba has never hid its closeness to North Korea. However, the agency says that’s Seoul “continues with behind-the-scene efforts to engage with the Latin American country.”
As an example, they report that the South Korean country “provided humanitarian assistance worth $200,000” after the partial destruction, in an unprecedented fire, of the Matanzas Supertank Base, in August last year.
None of this has been publicized by the official press of the Island.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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