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Cho Tae-yul

Cuba has been reluctant to establish official diplomatic relations with South Korea, but following its normalization of relations with the US, there are signs that its stance has shifted.

The Cuban government has invited the South Korean Foreign Minister to attend a multilateral summit meeting in Havana. This is prompting speculation that progress has been made in behind-the-scenes governmental negotiations aimed at normalizing bilateral relations.

Cuba is one of just three of the 191 UN member states (excluding North and South Korea) with which South Korea does not have diplomatic relations. And Cuba has more strategic importance than the other two (Syria and Macedonia).

“Second Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul is planning to represent the South Korean government at the 7th Summit of the Association of Caribbean States, which will take place in Havana, Cuba, from June 3 to 4,” said Cho Jun-hyeok, spokesperson of South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Cho Jun-hyeok made the official announcement in the regular briefing for the domestic and foreign press on May 31.

“The invitation to attend the summit was made to South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in a letter from ACS Secretary-General Alfonso M?nera, but Cho Tae-yul will be attending instead because [Foreign Minister] Yun Byung-se is currently accompanying President Park Geun-hye on her trip to Africa and France,” Cho Jun-hyeok added.

Cho Tae-yul will attend the summit as the representative of an observer state and will deliver a message in a session related to dialogue with observer states. He will also attend a dinner hosted by Cuban President Raul Castro.

This will be the second time for a South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs to visit Cuba. The last time was when Lee Gyu-hyeong, who was Second Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, visited Cuba in Sep. 2006 to attend the 14th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

South Korea opened an office of KOTRA (Korea Trade Promotion Corporation) in Havana in 2005, but it has yet to establish official diplomatic relations with the country.

When a resolution calling for the US to lift its embargo on Cuba was brought before a session of the UN General Assembly in Oct. 1999, during former president Kim Dae-jung’s second year in office, South Korea voted in favor of the resolution instead of abstaining as it had previously done. The following year, South Korea officially approached Cuba about holding negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations.

Over the past few years, significant progress has been made toward this goal. Perhaps most significantly, the first meeting in history between the Cuban and South Korean Foreign Ministers took place during the second meeting of foreign ministers with the Latin America Caribbean States Community (CELAC) Troika, which took place in Sep. 2013 during a session of the UN General Assembly.

In July 2014, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister visited South Korea to attend the third meeting of foreign ministers from South Korea and the CELAC quartet, which was held in Seoul. And in Feb. 2015, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Kyung-soo paid an unofficial visit to Cuba at the invitation of the Cuban government.

Cuba’s lack of diplomatic relations with South Korea stands in contrast to its longstanding special relationship with North Korea.

There is a North Korean embassy in Havana with eight staff.

In Sep. 2015, Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is expected to succeed Raul Castro as president, visited Pyongyang and met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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