By Diplomacy Journal Kayla Lee

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met with Radmila Shekerinska, Deputy Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), who is visiting South Korea, and exchanged views on ways to deepen the South Korea-NATO partnership on Oct. 20, 2025.

Minister Cho welcomed Deputy Secretary General Shekerinska's visit and noted that, following last month's visit by NATO Military Committee Chairman Dragone, this visit demonstrates the active high-level cooperation between South Korea and NATO in both defense and diplomatic spheres.

Minister Cho stated that Korea will continue its efforts to deepen its partnership with NATO amid multilayered global complex crises, and proposed strengthening substantive cooperation in areas such as defense industry, intelligence sharing, and cybersecurity.

Deputy Secretary General Shekerinska stated that South Korea is one of NATO's most important partners. She noted that with the interconnected security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, there is significant potential for diverse cooperation based on mutual threat assessments.

She particularly expressed hope that this visit would strengthen defense industry cooperation between the two sides.

Both sides agreed that there is significant potential for cooperation between South Korea and NATO and resolved to continue working closely together to address common global security challenges.