Six Party Talk Bank
South Korean Deputy Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and asked for his support for the establishment of a development bank in Northeast Asia. Their meeting took place in the afternoon of Oct. 9 in Lima, Peru, the venue of this year’s annual general meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
At the meeting, they exchanged opinions on the current global economic conditions and uncertainties and the Korean and U.S. governments’ policy issues. “South Korea is currently working on the establishment of the Northeast Asian Development Bank on the premise that North Korea gives up on its nuclear ambitions, and the U.S. government’s support for the goal will be highly appreciated,” the South Korean Deputy Prime Minister said, adding, “We expect that the bank will be founded by those participating in the six-party talks, but we are not ruling out the possibility of the others’ participation as well, and it is predicted that the Northeast Asian Development Bank will be able to function as a kind of leverage to encourage the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.”
In the meantime, the Deputy Prime Minister met with Mr. Ali Tayebnia, Iran’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, in the morning of Oct. 10 to discuss mutual economic cooperation. “I expect that the economic cooperation between Korea and my country will be recovered to the pre-sanction level as soon as the economic sanctions are lifted, because both countries have maintained amicable relations for a long while,” the Iranian minister remarked.