Lee leaves for Saint Petersburg after summit trip to Moscow

MOSCOW, Sept. 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak left for Saint Petersburg on Tuesday after completing his three-day visit to Moscow, where he held summit talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to upgrade bilateral relations to a strategic cooperative partnership.

Lee also sealed a dozen MOUs calling for practical bilateral cooperation across
the board, including in politics, diplomacy, security, defense, energy, economy
and aerospace and polar development.
Notably, Lee and Medvedev agreed to work together to send Russian natural gas
through a pipeline to South Korea via North Korea starting in 2015 and link the
inter-Korean railway with the trans-Siberian railway for its eventual connection
to Europe.
Before leaving Moscow, Lee visited the Khrunichev Space Center, a famous Russian
manufacturer of various space-launch systems, including the Proton rocket, and
met with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Aleksey Mikhailovich
Ridiger.
In Saint Petersburg, Lee was to meet with municipal leaders and receive an
honorary doctorate from Saint Petersburg State University, the alma mater of both
Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Lee will also give an address
in front of Russian college students after receiving the honorary doctorate.
Lee will return home Wednesday.
ycm@yna.co.kr
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