SEOUL, September 15 (AJP) - A South Korean media company and Kazakhstan's state news agency agreed on Tuesday to share and jointly produce news content, opening a direct channel between the two countries' newsrooms hours before their leaders were to meet in Seoul.
The memorandum of understanding was signed at Aju News Corporation's headquarters in central Seoul by Chairman Kwak Young-kil and Raushan Kazhibayeva, who directs the Republican State Enterprise "TV & Radio Complex of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan." The complex owns Kazinform International News Agency, the country's official wire service, along with the Jibek Joly television channel.
Aju News Corporation publishes AJP in English alongside its Korean-language news operations and is part of Aju Media Group that publishes news in other languages including Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.
The signing came during the heaviest week of diplomatic traffic between the two countries in years. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is in Seoul on a state visit and was scheduled to hold bilateral talks with President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, President Lee Jae Myung hosts the first Korea-Central Asia Summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where the six governments are expected to adopt a Seoul Declaration setting out a long-term partnership framework.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two organizations will exchange news content and credit each other as the source, produce material together, and open their correspondent networks to each other on request. It also covers staff training and internships, distribution of each other's output at home and abroad, and the sharing of production equipment. Costs for any of that work would be set in separate contracts, and the memorandum itself creates no financial obligation on either side.
Kazhibayeva framed the deal as an opening to the wider region rather than a bilateral arrangement. "This agreement will become a gateway for Central Asian countries, opening doors to new cooperation between media companies," she said.
AJP Takeaways
- Kazinform Director Raushan Kazhibayeva signed a memorandum of understanding with Aju News Corporation Chairman Kwak Young-kil in Seoul on Sept. 15 under which the two organizations will exchange and co-produce news content, credit each other as the source, open their correspondent networks on request, and cooperate on staff training, distribution and production equipment, with no financial obligation created by the document itself.
- Kazinform operates as part of a state enterprise supervised by Kazakhstan's presidential office that also owns the Jibek Joly television channel, is financed from the state budget, and runs correspondents in all 17 of Kazakhstan's regions plus bureaus in Russia, China, Türkiye, Europe, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan.
- South Korea's foreign ministry counts 119,542 ethnic Koreans living in Kazakhstan, most of them Koryo-saram descended from those deported from the Soviet Far East in 1937, an anniversary the government plans to mark next year by expanding Korean language and culture programs in the region. AJP drew those figures and plans from foreign ministry data and government announcements rather than from the signing itself.
Kazinform runs correspondents in all 17 of Kazakhstan's regions and maintains bureaus in Russia, China, Türkiye, Europe, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. It publishes in Kazakh, Russian, English, Chinese and Uzbek from its headquarters in Astana.
The agency traces its founding to August 1920, when it began as a regional branch of the Russian Telegraph Agency, and it has operated under several names and owners since. In 2022 it was folded into the presidential television and radio complex, and the following year the complex was reorganized into the state enterprise that holds it today. Its outlets are financed from the state budget.
Kazhibayeva has led the complex since April 2022. She served as an adviser to Kazakhstan's prime minister and headed the public relations department at the country's Defense Ministry before taking the post.
Kwak turned to the distance between the two publics rather than between the two governments. "South Korea and Kazakhstan go back a long way, but a wide gap still separates the two peoples. I hope this agreement closes that gap and brings them closer," Kwak said.
Those ties predate the establishment of diplomatic relations on Jan. 28, 1992. Kazakhstan is home to 119,542 ethnic Koreans, according to South Korea's foreign ministry, most of them Koryo-saram descended from Koreans deported from the Soviet Far East to Central Asia in 1937. Next year marks the 90th anniversary of that forced resettlement, and the South Korean government has said it plans to expand Korean language and culture programs in the region to mark it.
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