Foreign Minister Winston Peters will meet South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul today. Photo: NZME via LDR
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will look to build on New Zealand's growing ties with South Korea when he visits the country later today.
Along with ever growing trade links South Korea is set to become an increasingly important regional security partner for New Zealand, at a time of growing global uncertainty.
Last year New Zealand boosted its contribution to UN peacekeeping efforts on the Korean peninsula, and committed to send Defence Force ships to North Asia to help monitor sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear programme.
Peters will meet his counterpart, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul later tonight, with talks on regional security, North Korea, and enhanced trade all set to feature.
The visit, however, comes at a time of political instability in South Korea with its top Constitutional Court set to rule shortly on whether or not to remove or re-instate its President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Yoon was impeached earlier this year following outrage over his decision to briefly declare martial law in South Korea.
Meanwhile, Peters who is also the new Minister of Rail wouldn't be drawn on whether there might be discussions during the visit about his government's decision to cancel the contract it had with Korean ship builder Hyundai to build two new mega Cook Straight ferries.
New Zealand is facing a hefty break fee of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars over the cancellation.
Peters has been charged with finding a cheaper replacement option and is planning to make announcement at the end of March.
