S. Korean president to visit Czech for EU summit

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak plans to visit
the Czech Republic early next year for Seoul's first summit with the European
Union since he took office in February, a senior government official said Friday.

Lee also hopes to hold a signing ceremony for the South Korea-EU free trade
agreement, for which negotiations are under way, during his trip to Prague, the
official added, asking not to be named.
The Czech Republic will assume the rotating EU presidency in the first half of
next year.
"President Lee is pushing for a trip to Prague early next year. An exact date has
yet to be set," the official said. "It is part of President Lee's efforts to
reach out to European nations after wrapping up his summit diplomacy with four
major regional powers (the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan) in his first year in
office."
Lee met with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the current EU
presidency, on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing last month,
but their meeting was diplomatically recorded as a summit between the two
nations, not with the EU.
The South Korean president may decide to visit Prague en route to Britain, where
the second G20 economic summit will be held in April, the official said.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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