Jo Harper
13 July 2023•Update: 13 July 2023
WARSAW
Poland plans to buy modern military equipment from South Korea and produce equipment in the country based on Korean technologies, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol in the capital Warsaw.
“Cooperation between Poland and Korea in the field of defense industry has intensified. Today, Korean armaments have already helped modernize the Polish army,” Duda said at a joint news conference with Yoon.
After official talks, the two leaders signed three bilateral agreements on trade, industry, and infrastructure.
Warsaw is cementing ties with Seoul as a way to supplement incoming military hardware from the US.
In 2022, Poland purchased significant amounts of armaments from South Korea, including K2/K2PL tanks – 180 ordered under an executive agreement and a total of 1,000 covered by a framework agreement.
All purchases are accompanied by logistics and training packages, and significant quantities of ammunition have also been ordered for tanks, howitzers, and rocket launchers.
Yoon arrived in Poland on Wednesday for a three-day official visit aimed at deepening cooperation in strategic sectors such as arms and nuclear power and facilitating South Korean participation in reconstruction projects in Ukraine.
He is holding separate meetings with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
It is the South Korean president’s first official visit to a European nation since taking office on May 10, last year.
Yoon, who arrived in Warsaw after attending the NATO summit in Lithuania, also met with South Korean business officials operating in Poland, many of whom are interested in participating in reconstruction projects in post-war Ukraine.
Seoul has been increasing its cooperation with NATO for some time. Before departing for Europe, Yoon spoke about the threat posed by North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program.
There are about 600 companies with Korean capital operating in the Polish market, of which over 100 are factories. According to the Polish investment agency, PAIH, South Korea is one of Poland’s most important non-European economic partners.
