Seoul and Tehran agree to a record US$ 45 billion in MoUs

President Park Geun-hye met her counterpart Hassan Rouhani to ink MoUs in infrastructure and energy. This is the main trade understanding in S Korea’s history. Leaders call for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, and eradicating terrorism in the Middle East.

Teheran (AsiaNews) – South Korea and Iran have agreed to provisional deals worth US$ 45.6 billion dollars, especially in the construction and energy sectors.

Various memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed during a visit by South Korea’s conservative President Park Geun-hye in Tehran.

“President Rouhani and I have exchanged meaningful opinions on the common concerns of both countries,” President Park said after meeting her Iranian counterpart.

The summit was the first since the two countries established diplomatic relations back in 1962.

As a major US partner since the Korean War (1950-1953), South Korea had been lukewarm towards trading with Iran, until now.

For his part, moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stressed regional peace.  "It is our basic principle to eliminate all dangerous nuclear weapons both from the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East,” Rouhani said.

South Korea-Iran trade was worth US$ 6.1 billion at the end of 2015. Now a notable infrastructure deal is the US$ 5.3 billion provisional contract to lay a 541 kilometre-long inland railway between Esfahan and Ahwaz.

South Korea is also expected to invest in Iran’s water resource sector, not to mention its oil industry.

• iran
• south korea
• park
• rouhani
• meeting
• energy
• water
• nuclear
• railway
• memorandums of understanding