“Estonia’s development has been outstanding and full of valuable experiences and it is exciting to learn from for everybody,” he noted and he expressed the interest and willingness of the Korean side to tighten the cooperation in the future.
Ergma made a proposal to develop more active scientific cooperation. She also called on South Korean students to use more extensively the opportunities to study at Estonian universities.
Speaking about the worrying activities of North Korea in destabilising the region, the Prime Minister confirmed South Korea’s commitment to close cooperation with the international community with a view to finding solutions to the problem.
“The behaviour of North Korea is irresponsible and unacceptable internationally and inhuman with regard to its own citizens. Looking at where South Korea has reached in its developments during the last decades, ranking among the ten leading economies in the world, and at how the North Korean regime has led its society among the poorest in the world, then these things are not comparable. However, this is a proof as to where democracy and respect and development of human rights or, on the contrary, suppressing them, can lead to,” Ergma noted.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Sung-Hwan expressed his regret that the extensive food aid offered to North Korea had been hampered due to the unwillingness of the Communist regime to communicate and their insistent focus on the realisation of their nuclear programme.