1. The first Republic of Korea-United Kingdom meeting of the directors-general for consular affairs took place in London on October 28, co-chaired by Director-General for Overseas Koreans and Consular Affairs Lee Myung-yul of the ROK Foreign Ministry and Director-General for Economic and Consular Affairs Jullian King of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. On October 29, Director-General Lee observed a training session involving response to a mock crisis, which was held at a Crisis Management Centre in the UK.

◦ The meeting and the observation of the training came pursuant to the ROK-UK Memorandum of Understanding on Crisis Cooperation signed at the first bilateral ministerial-level strategic dialogue in December 2014 and as agreed at the second such meeting held in Seoul in August 2015.

- The two countries concluded the MOU after the ROK provided assistance to the UK in the evacuation of UK nationals from Libya during a crisis in Libya in August 2014. They have since moved relevant cooperation forward, including sharing with each other information on the response to Typhoon Hagupit that hit the Philippines.

2. In the consular meeting, the two sides discussed their travel alert systems; the ROK’s texting service on individual countries provided to Korean travelers; their operations of rapid response teams; and responses to past crises, including in the Middle East and the earthquake in Nepal. In addition, they shared their respective experiences and knowhow in strengthening consular organizations, and discussed ways to improve them. In particular, the UK side, expressing keen interest in the ROK’s texting service on individual countries, asked the ROK to continuously share its relevant experiences, including the operation of the service system and the reaction of ROK nationals to the service.

◦ The UK side mentioned that currently, the work to improve the Registered Traveller Service (RTS) system, in which the UK had decided in September to include the ROK, is moving forward smoothly, adding that ROK nationals will be able to benefit from the system in the near future.

3. On October 29, the ROK side, for the first time for a non-member of the Commonwealth, visited the Crisis Management Centre in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to observe a training session involving a mock plane crash.

4. The two sides noted with appreciation that their consular meeting helped broaden the scope of their cooperation to include not only political affairs and economy but also consular affairs and crisis management, and thereby upgraded their bilateral relations to special cooperative ties. They agreed to continuously increase their cooperation in a more substantive way in the future. To that end, they agreed that the UK will observe the ROK’s rapid response trainings; the two countries will conduct joint trainings on crisis management and response; ROK officials will attend the UK’s training course on rapid response; and the ROK will share its experiences of providing texting service on individual countries.


* unofficial translation