South Korea and Iran’s Partnership Potential

On May 1, South Korean President Park Geun-hye will travel to Tehran, Iran for a summit meeting with her counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani. This visit will be the first time a South Korean and Iranian president have met for a bilateral summit since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1962.

Our guest this week is Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who specializes in Iranian foreign and domestic policy. We discuss this historic event from the Iranian perspective, including what the meeting could mean for the two countries on both a practical and a symbolic level.

For more information on South Korea's ties with Iran, check out KEI's new blog post on the subject.