The presidents of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, and of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, signed in Seoul a memorandum on cooperation in financing nuclear projects to support the participation of South Korean companies in Turkey’s new nuclear power projects.

Lee said cooperation on the Sinop plant project, including site assessments and the work of a joint working group, was “progressing smoothly” under the memorandum on nuclear energy cooperation signed in November 2025. The project aims to build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant, on its northern Black Sea coast, with the state-run Korea Electric Power Corporation seeking to participate. The two countries also agreed to deepen defense cooperation by expanding joint production and technological cooperation and jointly exploring opportunities for companies from both countries in third-country markets. The governments also signed an agreement on natural resources and mining and plan an intergovernmental channel to diversify critical mineral supply chains. Bilateral trade reached a record US$ 10.7 billion last year, according to Lee, after surpassing US$ 10 billion for the first time in 2023, a decade after the free trade agreement took effect in 2013.