▲ President Moon Jae-in on April 28 held a phone summit with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The chancellor mentioned the talks on Twitter by saying, "Austria followed a similar approach." (Screen capture from chancellor's Twitter)


By Lee Kyoung Mi and Kim Minji

President Moon Jae-in on April 28 held a phone summit with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

The chancellor hailed Korea's "exemplary" quarantine efforts and said he wants to hear President Moon's explanation on his nation's successful response to the outbreak.

President Moon said, "Korea, too, suffered difficulties due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but after having systematically responded through intensive testing and tracing as well as thorough epidemiological investigations, the daily number of new confirmed cases has drastically decreased to around 10 recently."

The Austrian leader asked what strategies can prevent the outbreak of a second pandemic, to which the president replied by saying, "Korea intends to further strengthen international cooperation by sharing quarantine experiences and clinical data, providing quarantine and medical supplies, making efforts to develop a vaccine and treatments and guaranteeing the exchange of essential personnel, among other things."

The chancellor said Austria plans to soon end its travel alert for Korea and resume direct flights between the two countries since Korea is an exemplary nation in responding to COVID-19.

President Moon also thanked Austria, which he called a leading country in nuclear non-proliferation policy, for its continuing support for easing tension and establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula.

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