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As President Park Geun-hye enters the National Assembly for her meeting with Speaker Chung Se-kyun

President Park Geun-hye will not be attending the 24th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 19-20, the South Korean government recently announced.

This would be the first time since the first APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Seattle in 1993 that the South Korean President did not attend. The announcement raises questions over whether Park’s loss of prestige and trust amid an ongoing scandal involving alleged influence peddler Choi Sun-sil is spreading from domestic affairs into the areas of foreign affairs and national security.

“The President had already made the decision not to end this year’s APEC Leaders’ Meeting back in September, given the seriousness of the Korean Peninsula’s security situation with North Korea’s fifth nuclear test [in September],” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Cho Joon-hyuk said in a regular briefing for the domestic and foreign press at the ministry’s offices on the afternoon of Nov. 8.

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn (who will to be replaced soon) is set to attend the meeting in Park’s place, but will have no diplomatic authority.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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