'Silk Road spirit' meets supply chains at Korea-Central Asia summit

South Korea and the five Central Asian republics held their first heads-of-state summit in Seoul on Wednesday, adopting a 30-year cooperation framework targeting critical minerals, energy, supply chains and emerging technologies against the backdrop of a shared Silk Road history. The declaration established a leaders’ summit that brings together South Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan every two years, and a new mechanism that brings together the six countries’ industry ministers. “The ‘Silk Road spirit’ of Central Asia that connected people, technologies and cultures of the East and West as one is needed more than ever,” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said.