Roundup: S. Korean president says securing cooperation with Iran for denuclearized peninsula

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said her landmark visit to Iran was an opportunity to secure a room for cooperation with the Persian country in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, local media reported on Wednesday.

Park made a three-day visit to Iran from Sunday to hold a summit with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. She became the first South Korean president to visit the Middle East country since Seoul and Tehran set up diplomatic ties in 1962.

"This visit was aimed at securing of a room for cooperation with Iran on the Korean Peninsula denuclearization issue," Park said during a meeting with press corps on the flight from Tehran back to Seoul.

Park said it was very rare and meaningful for Iran to clearly and publicly express its position about the peninsula's denuclearization in consideration of the very amicable relations that Iran traditionally had with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Rouhani expressed his country's opposition to nuclear development on the Korean peninsula during a joint press conference on Monday after a summit with Park.

Park noted that President Rouhani strongly voiced his opposition to any nuclear development and publicly expressed his support for peaceful reunification on the peninsula, saying he repeatedly stressed his opposition to any security instabilities on the peninsula.

Park's comments came amid lingering concerns about the DPRK's fifth nuclear test, which South Korea's military expected to occur around the Pyongyang's ruling party convention on Friday.

The seventh ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the first party congress in 36 years, is expected to last for three to four days.

South Korea's military estimated the DPRK had already completed preparations for its fifth nuclear test at a nuclear test site where the country carried out all of its four nuclear tests. The latest test was conducted on Jan. 6, followed by the launch of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7.

In March and April, the DPRK test-fired a series of missiles and artillery shells amid the ongoing U.S.-South Korea joint annual military exercises that ended late in April.

Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un gave orders on March 15 to test a nuclear warhead and ballistic rockets capable of carrying the warhead "in a short time," fuelling worries about another nuclear detonation.

Explaining about the economic meaning of her trip to Iran, Park said it was a good opportunity to create a "second Middle East boom" for South Korea, noting that economic and trade cooperation with the Persian country will help South Korea gain momentum to reinvigorate its economy and restore exports.

During the first Middle East boom in the 1970s, many South Koreans were dispatched to construction sites in the Middle East to bring back home oil money, which became the seed capital to help transform the war-torn country following the 1950-53 Korean War into the Asia's No.4 economy.

Recently, South Korea's economy has struggled with sagging exports and the still lackluster domestic demand. Exports, which account for about half of the economy, declined for 16 straight months through April.

South Korea's real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.4 percent in the first quarter compared with three months earlier, down from a 0.7-percent expansion in the previous quarter.

President Park said South Korea had an experience of reviving its economy by making inroads into the Middle East when the economy was in difficulties, expressing her hope that an expanded cooperation with Iran could boost the sluggish economy.

During her visit, South Korea and Iran signed 66 memorandums of understandings, about one-third of them inked in the presence of Park and Rouhani.

Park said infrastructure and energy projects between the two countries, which were signed during her visit, were worth about 37.1 billion U.S. dollars, adding that 540 million dollars of contracts were signed separately between companies of the two nations. Enditem