SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will attend a NATO summit in Spain later this month, making him the first head of state from Seoul to do so, A govt official announced on Friday.

According to report, the summit will be held in Madrid on June 29 and 30, and it will be Yoon's first overseas travel since taking office.  "The President's participation in the NATO summit will be his first overseas trip since taking office, and it will be an important opportunity to strengthen cooperation with NATO allies and partners in order to maintain the values- and rules-based international order, as well as to expand our country's role as a global pivotal nation," the official told reporters.

Yoon will participate in a session with the 30 NATO members and partners, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, Georgia, and the European Union, during the summit. On the sidelines, he expects to hold multiple bilateral talks with leaders of "important European states," as per reports.

The official declined to comment on a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which has been widely reported as a possibility, given the delicacy of ongoing conversations.

It would be the first meeting between the two countries in more than two years, following a protracted debate over historical issues arising from Tokyo's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

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