Medvedev to wind up visit to Seoul, to attend G20 Summit

11/11 Tass 2

SEOUL, November 11 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
will wind up the official visit to the Republic of Korea on Thursday and
attend the G20 Summit on November 11-12.
During the final event of the official visit, the authorities of the
South Korean city of Incheon (Chemulpo) will hand over the Varyag cruiser'
s flag to the Russian delegation.
Along with another 13 objects from the cruiser, the flag was seized by
the Japanese after the Battle of Chemulpo, but ended up in South Korea
after Japan's defeat in Worlds War II.
Under Korean laws, objects of cultural heritage cannot be handed over
to other countries. So the flag from the Varyag will be returned to Russia
for permanent storage on condition that it should be put up on display in
South Korea from time to time.
The Varyag became a legend in Russia and many other countries during
the Russian-Japanese war of 1904, when it took part in the battle of
Chemulpo on January 27, 1904, engaging in a heroic and uneven fight with a
squadron of fifteen Japanese ships.
The Varyag was scuttled then. The Japanese recovered it from seawater
in 1905 and re-commissioned as a training ship named The Soya.
Russia purchased it back in 1916 and sent it for an overhaul to
Britain, where it was arrested after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
The British eventually sold the Varyag to Germany as scrap metal.
It sank in the Irish Sea a few hundred meters away from the town of
Lendalfoot in 1920, when it was tugged to a shipyard to be dismantled.
At the G20 Summit, Medvedev will chair and speak at one of the
roundtable sessions of a business forum that will focus on the role of
business in ensuring sustainable and balanced demand. The session will
focus on how to spur trade and direct investments as well as on support to
small and medium-sized business.
The business forum is designed to become a tool for forging
interaction between the government and entrepreneurs in order to overcome
the consequences of the global economic and financial crisis, invigorate
economic activities and ensure sustainable and balanced growth.
The leaders of Argentina, the European Union, Indonesia, Spain,
Mexico, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and Great Britain have confirmed
their participation in the roundtable discussions.
Medvedev will also have separate meetings with the prime ministers of
Australia and Britain, Julia Gillard and David Cameron. Another one-to-one
meeting is scheduled with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
A reception given by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for the G20
leaders will wind up the working day.
-0-zak/