Polish President cancels Korea trip on typhoon, other concerns

Polish President Andrzej Duda shakes hands with President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is on an official visit to Poland, at the Korea-Poland summit held at the Warsaw Presidential Palace on July 13. [Photo by Yonhap]

Polish President Andrzej Duda, who was scheduled to visit South Korea on Wednesday, canceled his trip on Tuesday.

According to multiple diplomatic sources on Tuesday, Duda had planned to arrive in Korea on Wednesday during the 2023 World Scout Jamboree event in SaeManGeum to meet with key domestic figures and businesses and attend the closing ceremony on Saturday.

The entire schedule, however, was cancelled.

Sources note that Poland requested Korea that Duda cancel his visit as the industrial sites he was scheduled to visit with officials of defense companies supplying weapons to Poland were to be directly affected by Typhoon Khanun.

Duda is known to be concerned that the Typhoon could strand him in Seoul and limit his itinerary. In addition, the recent escalation of tensions on the Polish-Belarusian border, which raised security concerns, is also believed to have had an impact.

The fact that the Jamboree has been disrupted in the past few days due to lack of preparation and poor management as well as the Typhoon is also presumed to have affected the cancelled visit.

Poland will host the next World Scout Jamboree in 2027, and Duda was planning to attend the closing ceremony on the event’s final day to be handed over the Jamboree flag.

However, as the date and location of the closing ceremony kept changing, the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the diplomatic corps to a briefing session on Monday to explain the situation.

In the end, Duda’s schedule to visit defense companies in the South Jeolla and South Gyeongsang Provinces along with attending the closing ceremony in SaeManGeum had to be canceled altogether, according to sources.

The Korean defense industry, in the meantime, had hoped for the execution of a second export contract during the Polish president’s visit as the leaders of the two countries had agreed to introduce more Korean-made weapons during President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to Poland last month.