Moon to attend Biden's summit for democratic nations

By Kim Deok-hyun

SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- President Moon Jae-in will attend a virtual democracy summit to be hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden this week, his office said Wednesday.

Moon is expected to brief leaders of some 110 nations on South Korea's achievements in promoting democracy and human rights on Thursday at 10 p.m. (Korean time), presidential officials said.

Moon also plans to urge global leaders to expand international cooperation to promote democracy in other nations.

The summit was a campaign promise of Biden, who has prioritized achieving the goal of rallying the nations of the world against the forces of authoritarianism.

Key U.S. competitors, including China and Russia, that were not invited, have strongly denounced this week's summit as causing global division.

The summit comes just days after the U.S. announced it will stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing due to China's human rights abuses.

In response to the U.S. announcement, the South Korean government repeated its principled support for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, again expressing hope that it will contribute to peace and inter-Korean relations.

The Moon Jae-in administration hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to revitalize the Korea peace process from the Beijing Olympics, similar to that from the 2018 PyeongChang games.

Some view the Beijing event as a potential chance for significant progress in the Moon government's push for the declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War.

kdh@yna.co.kr
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