In Quest of a Second Boom: South Korea’s Middle East Policy under Park Geun-hye

In spite of her troubled presidency at home and premature, ignominious exit from power, Park Geun-hye made serious attempts to bolster the main direction of the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) foreign policy toward the Middle East. A collaborative drive for accomplishing a new momentous boom was by and large a dominant and recurring theme in the Park government’s overall approach to the region. Park enjoyed both personal motivation as well as politico-economic justifications to push for such arduous yet potentially viable objective. Although the ROK’s yearning for a second boom in the Middle East was not ultimately accomplished under the Park presidency, nonetheless, the very aspiration played a crucial role in either rekindling or initiating policy measures in South Korea’s orientation toward different parts of a greater Middle East region, extending from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to Morocco.