[Politics & Diplomacy] Seoul's pending foreign policy issues as FM nominee awaits confirmation, Lee-Trump Summit still not set

South Korea's foreign policy is in the early stages of formation, a little over a month after the Lee Jae Myung administration took office.

A new foreign minister awaits confirmation, top-level talks with the U.S. are in the works, and there are growing efforts to diversify Korea's diplomacy.

To touch upon the latest developments, we're joined in the studio by our foreign affairs correspondent Oh Soo-young.

Q1. Let's start with the confirmation hearing for Cho Hyun, the nominee for foreign minister, taking place on Thursday.

What do we know about him and what will his priorities be?

Cho Hyun is a seasoned career diplomat, having served as Vice Foreign Minister, and South Korea's Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Cho also happens to be a trade negotiation expert,

who was behind economic cooperation and trade initiatives with the likes of Japan, India and Mexico.

So it's likely he will play an instrumental role in handling tariff negotiations alongside the trade minister, and further strengthening the S. Korea-U.S. alliance, at a time when it is hard to engage with the Trump administration.

Amid pressure from Washington officials to offer more financially, outside the existing agreement on sharing the cost of stationing U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula, Seoul's foreign ministry has simply said it's communicating with the U.S. on ways to further develop the alliance.

So once Cho is inaugurated, setting the course of negotiations with the U.S. will be a priority.

In his comments over the past month, Cho has indicated he will aim to strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance, but at the same time, broaden Seoul's realm of foreign policy beyond its traditional partners.

His time at the UN would prove valuable in expanding Korea's multilateral diplomacy.

Cho is also expected to support the Lee administration's more dovish position towards engaging North Korea, supporting renewed dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.

He first has to have his nomination confirmed of course, so let's see how that goes tomorrow.

Q2. It's clear leadership is needed to steer Korea's foreign policy -- not just by the minister but at the top level.

Presidents Lee and Trump still have yet to meet. Is there any chance we'll see a bilateral meeting this month?

At this point, a July summit is looking increasingly unlikely.

After initially hinting that a summit could happen next week, the South Korean President's office now simply says it's closely communicating with Washington.

This comes after plans for a high-level visit by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio were canceled earlier this month, reportedly due to other priorities in the Middle East.

Rubio's visit was expected to lay the groundwork for a summit in the coming weeks, and now we're not hearing anything more concrete from either side.

With President Trump's new deadline for tariff negotiations set for August 1st, there's growing pressure for Seoul to procure a meeting as soon as possible.

However, with Trump's attention divided between Russia and the Middle East, observers say more realistic windows for the first Lee-Trump meeting would be September, around the time of the UN General Assembly or the APEC Summit in South Korea's Gyeongju in October.

For now, the two presidents have only spoken on the phone in the days after Lee Jae Myung took office.

Q3. Right. In the meantime though, it looks like there's been some progress on regional diplomacy.

Yes, the Lee Administration has set out to strengthen regional partnerships in diverse areas beyond South Korea's traditional security-focused interests.

This includes holding a stronger presence at multilateral forums, as we saw at the ASEAN regional forum last Thursday and Friday in Malaysia.

South Korea and ASEAN adopted a new five-year Plan of Action, laying the groundwork for deeper political, security, economic and socio-cultural relations.

"We expect Korea to be that standard setter and to help us in terms of building our frameworks regional frameworks, regional frameworks on digital economy, on cybersecurity on say renewable energy in the future and energy resiliency. Second is of course how Korea is a leader in technology for infrastructure and funding. That's something that's complimentary ASEAN.

And last but not least, of course, Korea is also being seen as a reliable and dressing option that is politically safe early there is no chance that Korea will be seen as troublesome or geopolitically difficult to work with in like other countries at this moment"

As Foreign Minister nominee Cho Hyun awaits parliamentary approval, first vice minister Park Yoon-joo led the delegation to Malaysia.

But despite his deputy status, we saw him hold a high-level trilateral meeting with the U.S. and Japan's top diplomats, expressing their will to deter North Korea's nuclear threat, and he also raised the agenda in various discussions throughout ASEAN related forums.

So it's been seen as a successful first start to Seoul's push for diplomatic diversification under the new government.

Alright. It's still early days but hopefully there'll be continued progress on multilateral diplomacy, as South Korea chairs the APEC Summit in Gyeongju later this year.

Thanks for coming in today Sooyoung.