Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae meets with Khayrullo Bozarov, governor of Uzbekistan's Fergana region, on Friday to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between the two regions. [Incheon city government]
Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae meets with Khayrullo Bozarov, governor of Uzbekistan's Fergana region, on Friday to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between the two regions. [Incheon city government]

Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae has launched a diplomatic push to deepen the city's ties with Uzbekistan.

Park met with Khayrullo Bozarov, governor of Uzbekistan's Fergana region, on Friday at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square in Seoul to discuss ways to expand exchanges and cooperation between the two regions.

During the meeting, Park proposed broadening the existing partnership between Incheon and Fergana into a wider bilateral framework encompassing South Korea and Uzbekistan as a whole.

The two sides also discussed extending cooperation into more substantive areas, particularly the economy and culture.

The Fergana side put forward proposals for building a concrete cooperation framework.

Governor Bozarov suggested forming a working group between the two cities to draw up a cooperation roadmap and establishing a standing system for quarterly consultations.

"I hope the close friendship that Incheon and Fergana have built will go beyond regional cooperation and ultimately bear fruit as broader and deeper exchanges between South Korea and Uzbekistan," Park said.

Incheon and Fergana signed a sister-city agreement in 2022 and have since maintained exchanges in the areas of personnel, public administration and healthcare.


gilbert@heraldcorp.com