South Korea and Iran are expected to sign several trade deals worth billions of dollars and discuss sensitive subjects like North Korea following President Park Geun-hye's arrival in Tehran with a large group of business leaders.
Iran's official state news agency IRNA said that more than 230 business executives accompanied Park who, along with several ministers, met Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Monday and held meetings with Iranian officials.
Park asked for Iran's help in implementing UN Security Council resolutions calling for the nuclear disarmament of the Korean peninsula.
Iran and North Korea are allies. Tehran and Pyongyang have long been suspected of being close partners in developing weapons technology.
Apparently, this tie between Iran and North Korea exists as far as the 1980s. It was during that time that North Korea supplied some military equipment to Tehran. The US have questioned this supposed relationship between the two but Iran said that it has current relationship with North Korea. This is in contrary with the recent incident where Iranian technicians where said to be deployed to North Korea to help with their nuclear weapons.
It's no secret though that North Korea and Iran has diplomatic and trade links, something that South Korea is about to sign up for as well with Iran. And I think that partnering with South Korea is only beneficial for them, since it has a lot of business and banking opportunities to share with Iran. Just this month, the sales of oil from Iran to South Korea has already tripled.
The question remains though, do North Korea and Iran has a secret agreement about their nuclear weapons? Will Iran even help South Korea in talking to North Korea to stop their creation of nuclear weapons? I don't know... It's still a question that only time can answer.
I'm currently living in SK and didn't know about this, but I don't think it's been grabbing much attention in the country. To be honest the whole North Korea issue is more important to people outside South Korea than insiders, it's always the same threatening garbage that never gets anything done from either sides.
It will be interesting to see how the USA responds to this deal. South Korea is a US backed nation with the US military stationed throughout the country. Iran is an unstable country for western viewers and North Korea is a threat the US is often looking to suppress. Let's see how it develops.
