President Yoon Suk Yeol will embark on a seven-day overseas trip that will take him to London where he will pay his respects at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II before traveling to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and hold summits on the sidelines.
President Yoon and First Lady Kim Keon-hee will arrive in London on Sunday to pay their respects at Westminster Hall where the late monarch lies in state, according to first deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo on Thursday.
They will then offer their condolences at an official state event hosted by King Charles III, and Camilla, the Queen Consort, at Buckingham Palace on the eve of the funeral. Yoon and Kim will also be among the more than two-thousand mourners attending the royal funeral at Westminster Abbey on Monday.
The president will then head to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, the first day of its high-level General Debate, as the tenth leader out of 185 UN member states to speak at the podium.
Addressing the Assembly for the first time as president, Yoon will pledge to coordinate international efforts under the principle of shared values of respect for freedom and democracy. Yoon plans to outline South Korea’s roadmap for peace, in which the divided nation will join with the global community to stand up to the threat of war, nuclear risks and abuse of human rights.
Yoon also plans to publicly urge North Korea to take steps towards denuclearization.
The president is scheduled to hold separate summit talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida some time between Tuesday and Wednesday. No agenda has been set for the discussions.
It will be the first meeting between Yoon and Kishida, and the first between the leaders of the two sides since December 2019.
Wrapping up his schedule at the UN, Yoon will travel to Ottawa for a summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 23, as the two sides celebrate the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic ties.