NATO chief says S. Korea will attend upcoming summit

OSLO, June 1 (Yonhap) -- For the second straight year, South Korea will participate in the meeting of heads of state for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, its chief said Thursday.

"For the second time in history, we will have all the leaders of four Asia-Pacific partners, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, attending our summit in Vilnius," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference, following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

The Lithuanian capital of Vilnius will host the NATO summit from July 11 to 12.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attended last year's summit in Madrid. Stoltenberg extended an invitation to Yoon for the 2023 meeting prior to his visit to Seoul in January this year.

Recalling his trip to South Korea and Japan then, Stoltenberg said, "The message there was that security is not regional; security is global."

"What happens in Asia matters to Europe. What happens in Europe matters to Asia," he continued. "Therefore, it is even more important that NATO allies are strengthening our partnership with our Indo-Pacific partners."

To that end, Stoltenberg condemned the recent satellite launch by North Korea.

"This blatantly violates several U.N. Security Council resolutions. It's a threat to neighbors and a challenge to global stability," he said. "Of course, this launch raises tensions and poses a serious risk to the security of the region. NATO calls on North Korea to cease these provocative actions and to return to dialogue in order to achieve sustainable peace, and complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We stand together with our closer partners in the region, the Republic of Korea and Japan."

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