South Korean president visits UAE, showcasing deep ties

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DUBAI – On a travel to the United Arab Emirates, the president of South Korea connected Sunday reportedly reached a preliminary multibillion-dollar woody to merchantability Seoul’s surface-to-air missiles to Abu Dhabi and pledged deeper practice with the Gulf Arab federation.

After South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Emirati Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum successful Dubai, the countries signed a memorandum of knowing for the UAE's acquisition of a South Korean mid-range rocket defence strategy valued astatine immoderate $3.5 billion, South Korea's Yonhap quality bureau reported.

There were nary further details connected the woody announced during the sojourn nor contiguous remark from the UAE. But during Dubai's weeklong aviation commercialized amusement past November, the Emirati Ministry of Defense tweeted it planned to get South Korea's M-SAM, an precocious aerial defence strategy designed to intercept missiles astatine altitudes beneath 40 kilometers (25 miles), saying it would “constitute a qualitative summation to the capabilities of the nationalist aerial defense."

Sheikh Mohammed posted photos of the gathering and said the UAE seeks “a broad strategical economical partnership” with South Korea, 1 of the world’s apical crude importers and financiers of vigor projects.

The nations person strengthened their defence practice implicit the past decade, with South Korean elite peculiar forces adjacent traveling to the UAE to bid Emirati troops successful an unprecedented years-long deployment for the Asian country.

Meanwhile, the UAE has hosted hundreds of North Korean laborers successful past years who supply a cardinal gross watercourse for Pyongyang. But nether unit to enforce U.S.-led sanctions implicit North Korea’s atomic program, Abu Dhabi has precocious moved to choke disconnected the web and stopped renewing North Korean enactment visas.

From Dubai’s Expo 2020, wherever South Korea boasts a sprawling pavilion to showcase the country’s high-tech and taste achievements, President Moon praised the world's just and pledged the countries volition “transcend generations and nationalist borders to physique backmost unneurotic and leap guardant together.”

President Moon landed successful the determination fiscal hub of Dubai connected Saturday, and was greeted by UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei. The lipid and gas-dependent South Korea imports fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf, including from oil-rich Abu Dhabi, to powerfulness its energy-intensive economy, dominated by manufacturing industries from cars to petrochemicals.

The UAE represents 8% of Seoul’s lipid imports, according to 2019 information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Not lone does Seoul bargain Emirati oil, but South Korean firms person participated successful the improvement of Emirati lipid fields to boost the Asian country’s aforesaid sufficiency and, significantly, person built the UAE’s Barakah atomic powerfulness works — the archetypal connected the Arabian Peninsula.

The radical of 4 reactors astatine Barakah successful Abu Dhabi’s acold occidental desert, which marked the Korea Electric Power Corporation’s archetypal planetary deal, are gradually coming online. As the UAE seeks to alteration its reliance connected fossil fuels and diversify distant from oil, it plans to gully a 4th of its energy from the $20 cardinal reactors.

During the South Korean commercialized minister’s travel to the UAE precocious past year, the countries besides began negotiations connected a caller bilateral commercialized deal, including agreements to make sources of cleanable power. On Monday, Moon met with an Emirati concern delegation astir clean-burning hydrogen fuel, his property bureau said.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has sharpened its absorption connected hydrogen successful caller months, gathering facilities to nutrient ample volumes of the substance and shipping alleged bluish ammonia to Japan.

“Carbon neutrality is evidently a hard process, but if the 2 nations beforehand the hydrogen manufacture done solidarity and cooperation, they volition person caller opportunities,” Yonhap quality bureau quoted Moon arsenic telling a concern forum successful Dubai, adding that Seoul has helped the UAE make a hydrogen-powered nationalist transport system.

A antithetic South Korean export took halfway signifier aboriginal Sunday astatine Expo, arsenic a drawstring of prima K-pop bands including Psy and Stray Kids performed catchy songs with dynamic creation moves for the assemblage of frenetic fans who braved the rainfall to hold successful enactment for hours since the morning. Hundreds of teenagers crammed up against each different and danced, adjacent arsenic microorganism cases skyrocket successful the UAE.

Before singing his classical 2012 deed “Gangnam Style," Park Jae-sang of Psy announced that he'd merchandise a caller opus this twelvemonth for the archetypal clip successful 4 years.

“I tin committedness that to Dubai,” helium said.

The assemblage went wild. An ebullient President Moon successful attendance joined the applause.

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