The Republic of Korea’s Director General for International Policy, the Honorable Jeong Kyu Lee, led a delegation of officials visiting NATO Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) to meet with MARCOM Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Giorgio Lazio and discuss issues of shared importance and opportunities for cooperation within the framework of the Individual Partnership Cooperation Program (IPCP).
During the visit, Director General Lee and his colleagues toured MARCOM’s Maritime Operations Centre, the nerve centre for NATO’s operations in the maritime domain worldwide.
In April of this year, during counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Oman, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Naval Escort Task Group commander, embarked aboard the destroyer ROKS KANG GAM CHAN, visited NATO’s Operation OCEAN SHIELD Task Force Commander on board the flagship ESPS CRISTÓBAL COLÓN for briefs on counter-piracy activities while the ships conducted manoeuvring and tactical exercises.
Rear Admiral Lazio said:
We have demonstrated through counter-piracy operations that there are valuable opportunities for our respective maritime forces to work together to our mutual benefit.
I think today’s meeting was an important step forward in the avancement of cooperative relations between NATO and the Republic of Korea.
Director General Lee was appointed to his present position within the ROK Ministry of National Defence in June of 2013. The ROK is one of NATO’s Partners Across the Globe, with cooperation between the two dating to 2005, and ROK contributing troops and funding to ISAF since 2010. The ROK and NATO signed the IPCP in September 2012.
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Press release, Image: MARCOM