June 23, 2025
SEOUL – President Lee Jae Myung will not fly to the Netherlands to meet with leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization later this week in The Hague, said Kang Yu-jung, spokesperson of the presidential office, in a note to reporters on Sunday.
“The government actively considered the president’s participation in the NATO summit despite a range of matters he had to handle regarding state affairs,” Kang said.
“However, given the various domestic issues and uncertainties due to developments in the Middle East, President Lee made the decision not to attend the event this time,” Kang also said, adding that Seoul was coordinating with NATO over who would lead South Korea’s delegation there.
The announcement came hours after US President Donald Trump touted a “spectacular military success” following precision strikes on Iran’s three key nuclear enrichment facilities — Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan.
Trump is also pressuring the other 31 NATO member states to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. According to the Pentagon, South Korea, along with other Asian allies, should also align with the “new standard for allied defense spending.” South Korea’s defense spending accounts for 2.32 percent of GDP this year.
The upcoming summit, scheduled to be held Tuesday and Wednesday, would have been the fourth consecutive NATO event at which a South Korean leader has appeared. Lee’s disgraced conservative predecessor, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, did not miss any of the NATO summits held during his presidency from May 2022 to April this year.
Lee’s attendance could have opened the possibility of bilateral talks with Trump ahead of Washington’s deadline for its “reciprocal” tariffs to take effect in early July.
South Korea is not a member of NATO, but over the past few years, the alliance has regarded South Korea as one of its like-minded Indo-Pacific partners — the so-called “IP4,” along with Japan, Australia and New Zealand — that contribute to cooperative security and deterrence. All four countries have received invitations to attend this year’s event.
This year, however, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also recently decided to skip the multilateral meeting in the Netherlands. Instead, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles will represent the country at the summit.
Albanese, like Lee, was unable to attend a scheduled meeting with Trump due to the US leader’s early departure from the G7 summit amid growing tensions in the Middle East.
On the other hand, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Nixon has arrived in Europe to attend the NATO summit as expected. Tokyo also confirmed Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s attendance at the summit while in the Netherlands from Tuesday to Thursday.
On May 25, during the presidential campaign, Lee expressed hesitation about attending the event unless the summit “addresses specific current issues,” adding that domestic issues such as Korea’s sluggish economy would be his priority.
Lee, however, appears to have shifted his stance after taking the oath of office on June 4.
Lee told reporters on his way to attend the Group of Seven summit in Canada last week that he “was initially not considering attending the multilateral summits.” However, he changed his mind after gathering opinions and deciding it was important to demonstrate South Korea’s recovery following the recent internal political turmoil and to highlight that there is ample room for international cooperation.