site.btaPresident Plevneliev Ends Visit to South Korea

President Plevneliev Ends Visit to South Korea

Seoul, May 15 (BTA special correspondent Anelia Tsvetkova) -
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev ended his two-day official
visit to South Korea on Friday. He visited the Demilitarized
Zone between North and South Korea, which is considered the most
 heavily guarded area in the world.

After lengthy talks, in 2012 the South Korean army agreed to
open the area around the zone to visitors and to help develop
roads free of landmines.

Plevneliev stepped on North Korean territory as well when he
entered a building in the Joint Security Area, the only portion
of the Demilitarized Zone where South and North Korean
representatives were in direct contact until 2007. The Joint
Security Area is the location where all negotiations since 1953
have been held.

Later in the day Plevneliev participated in a Bulgaria-Korea
business forum in Seoul, organized by the Korea Federation of
Small and Medium Business (Kbiz). Bilateral  memoranda of
economic cooperation were signed: between the Bulgarian Small
and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency and Kbiz; between the
Association of Bulgarian Exporters and the Korea Importers
Association; and between the Confederation of Employers and
Industrialists in Bulgaria and the Federation of Korean
Industries.

Sungkyunkwan University, the oldest in Korea and one of the four
 largest in the country, conferred an honorary doctor's degree
on Plevneliev.

The Bulgarian President also met with National Assembly Speaker
Jeong Ui-hwa.