10th IRS Forum held with Russo-Korean Society

On Friday, December 8, our institute held a forum (IRS Forum) with the Russo-Korean Society delegation visiting Korea in the conference room on the 11th floor of the main building. On the topic of “The Role of the Russia-Korea Society in Korea-Russia Relations,” the head of the Russian visit to Korea, Professor Valery Suhinin (former Russian Ambassador to North Korea), and professors from the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO) discussed private-level cooperation and interdisciplinary cooperation between Korea and Russia. We exchanged frank opinions about exchanges. The Russo-Korean Society is a permanent organization established in Moscow in 2014 to build a friendly network within Russia. It is a public diplomacy organization established to expand the base for the development of Korea-Russia relations and to promote mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries. The Russia-Korea Society, chaired by MGIMO President Anatoly Torkunov, regularly holds the 'Korea-Russia Political Forum', and in 2022, 24 Korean and Russian experts will participate in the 'Korea-Russia History', which summarizes 100 years of Korea-Russia relations for the first time. and published it.

Hong Wan-suk, Dean of the Graduate School of International and Area Studies, who served as moderator for this forum, explained how Russian Studies in Korea has developed in order to increase understanding of the development of Russian Studies in Korea, and emphasized that Hankuk University of Foreign Studies is still the leading educational research institution in Russian Studies. He also said that he hopes that academic and human exchanges between Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and MGIMO will be activated in the future and that interest in and research on Korea in Russia will continue. In response, MGIMO professors said that exchanges at the student and professor level with Hankuk University of Foreign Studies are continuing and that Hankuk University of Foreign Studies is participating They responded that they would like to hold a Korea-Russia Youth Forum.

Professor Suhinin, head of the delegation, said that Korea and Russia have developed a strategic partnership, but recently the relationship between the two countries is not what it used to be. He added that Korea needs to make more active efforts to improve its relationship with Russia, and that Russia is responding in this regard. He emphasized that he is ready for this. In response to this, Professor Lee Dae-sik said that although there are fluctuations in Korea-Russia relations depending on the characteristics of the Korean regime, both Korea and Russia fundamentally view exchange and cooperation as important, and the fact that Korean companies have not yet withdrawn from Russia due to the recent sanctions against Russia can be explained by this. He emphasized that it was proof.