Report, Embassy of Hungary in Yugoslavia to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry

[…] Hereby I summarize the information I received about this subject from the competent department of the Foreign Secretariat:

South Korea and Yugoslavia do not have either diplomatic relations or regular economic contacts. In recent times the South Korean side repeatedly took the initiative to establish various forms of contacts:

    – The South Korean side proposed the establishment of bilateral sports contacts [emphasis in the original], as a concrete example they invited the Vojvodina football team for a guest performance in South Korea, and they even undertook to pay the team’s travel costs. The Yugoslav sports organizations do not strive to establish a bilateral relationship, but at international competitions held [in Yugoslavia], they, in the customary way, do not discriminate against South Korea.

[…]

South Korea proposed to establish economic contacts with Yugoslavia, too. On this issue, the Yugoslav standpoint is the following:

    – As provided by Yugoslav laws, Yugoslav enterprises [emphasis in the original] are not prohibited [from trading with South Korea] (there are such legal prohibitions on, for instance, commerce with South Africa), and thus the Yugoslav enterprises, if they can make a profit from it, are free to trade with South Korean enterprises. Since Yugoslav enterprises are independent entities, it is not necessary to establish interstate relations.

    – In the relations between the boards of trade [emphasis in the original], they consider it permissible to establish contacts between the South Korean and Yugoslav boards, because the latter are also independent organizations. To the knowledge of the F[oreign] S[ecretariat], our source of information, the Yugoslav Board of Trade does not intend to establish contacts with its South Korean counterpart, because this might produce considerable negative effect on [its relations with] other [foreign] partners.

    – For the time being Yugoslavia does not plan to establish interstate economic relations [emphasis in the original] [with South Korea]; they explain this by that they have no diplomatic relations [with South Korea], and [such a step] must be preceded by the establishment of sufficiently advanced relations between the [Yugoslav and South Korean] enterprises.

    – They are not ready yet for the establishment of diplomatic relations [emphasis in the original], because in this field the further Yugoslav steps will depend on the development of South Korea’s foreign policy (e.g., the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Vietnam, and so on).           

Elek Tóth

Deputy Ambassador