Moon to meet Asia-Pacific news agency chiefs this week

SEOUL. KAZINFORM President Moon Jae-in is scheduled to meet heads of news agencies in the Asia-Pacific region this week, his office said Tuesday, amid expectations that he will explain the government's peace efforts with North Korea, YONHAP reports.

Moon will meet Yonhap News CEO Cho Sung-boo as well as representatives of 32 news agencies from 28 countries in the region, including China's Xinhua News Agency, Japan's Kyodo News and the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (Itar-Tass), according to Cheong Wa Dae.

The meeting will take place at the presidential office Thursday afternoon.

The president is expected to mention Seoul's efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the Korean peninsula and the role media can play in the process.

He is also expected to touch on the upcoming ASEAN-South Korea commemorative summit and a separate Mekong-South Korea session set to be held in the southeastern port city of Busan on Nov. 25-27. The three-day meetings would be the biggest diplomatic event to be held in the country since Moon's inauguration in May 2017.

Thursday's meeting comes on the sideline of the 17th Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) General Assembly, which will take place at Lotte Hotel Seoul from Thursday to Friday.

OANA, which was formed in 1961 on the initiative of UNESCO to promote regional news exchanges, has held its general assembly every three years.

Yonhap News will be formally elected as the new chair of OANA at the upcoming Seoul assembly and lead the organization for the next three years, also serving as its secretariat to prepare the agenda of various OANA meetings, deliver notices to member companies and operate the OANA website.

Yonhap will chair OANA for the first time since joining the organization more than 30 years ago, apparently reflecting the status of Yonhap News and South Korea in the global media community.

Yonhap, which was chosen to replace Azertac of Azerbaijan as new OANA chair at the 16th OANA General Assembly in 2016, said it will actively play a «media diplomacy» role by expanding the scope of exchanges and cooperation among Asia-Pacific news agencies. Yonhap played host to the OANA Summit Congress in 2010 and the 2015 executive board meeting of OANA.

The 17th general assembly will feature three panel sessions under the theme «New Challenges for Journalism: Technological Innovations and Issues of Trust.»

OANA delegates attending the Seoul assembly will also be given opportunities to communicate with South Korea's government and business circles.