South Korea, Australia, and Other 'Mikta 5 Countries' Hold Virtual Senior Officials Meeting... Agree to Strengthen COVID-19 Response Cooperation

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 6th, the five MIKTA countries?Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey, and Australia?held a virtual Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) to discuss each country's current response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and cooperation measures among the five MIKTA countries.

MIKTA is a consultative group of middle powers consisting of Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey, and Australia, launched in September 2013 on the occasion of the 68th United Nations General Assembly. Since its inception, it has held 16 foreign ministers' meetings, 9 senior officials' meetings, and 5 parliamentary speakers' meetings, issuing more than 20 statements including joint statements by foreign ministers on COVID-19 and international health.

This meeting was held at the proposal of Korea, the chair country for this year, and was presided over by Ham Sang-wook, Director-General for Multilateral Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in his capacity as chair.

The representatives of the five MIKTA senior officials shared information on the current COVID-19 situation in their respective countries located in different regions, along with the policy efforts their governments have taken domestically and internationally.

The Korean side introduced domestic measures such as the provision of emergency disaster relief funds to revive the economy, which has been contracted due to the prolonged pandemic, and emphasized that Korea has taken the lead in promoting international cooperation based on the principles of openness, transparency, and democracy, including exploring exceptional allowances for the movement of essential personnel between countries for the rapid recovery of the global economy.

Furthermore, Korea introduced that the group of friendly countries launched under Korea’s leadership last May as a platform to promote international cooperation under the pandemic is active at the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and called for active cooperation from MIKTA member countries.

On this day, the representatives of the senior officials’ meeting agreed on the importance of inter-country cooperation amid the prolonged pandemic and decided to continue close cooperation among MIKTA member countries not only in responding to the current health crisis but also in mitigating the broad socioeconomic impacts and supporting vulnerable countries across various fields.

The participants evaluated that Korea has played a central role in MIKTA-level international cooperation on COVID-19 by leading the adoption of the MIKTA foreign ministers’ joint statement on COVID-19 response last April, hosting two senior officials’ meetings, and spearheading the inaugural launch of the Development Cooperation Agencies Consultative Group.

An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized, “Inter-country cooperation is essential to simultaneously achieve the two major goals of infectious disease containment and economic and social normalization,” and added, “As the chair country this year, we will continue to explore various opportunities to strengthen MIKTA-level cooperation on COVID-19 in multiple ways.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.