South Korea president to meet former president Lee Myung-bak next week

Seoul, Aug 10 (IANS) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will have a dinner meeting with former President Lee Myung-bak next week, a source said on Saturday.Yoon has invited Lee, who served as president from 2008 to 2013, and his wife for dinner, according to a source familiar with the issue, without providing details on the schedule and the location, Yonhap news agency reported.First Lady Kim Keon Hee and Chung Jin-suk, Yoon’s chief of staff who had served as a senior secretary to Lee for political affairs, plan to attend the dinner, the source said.It will be their first dinner meeting since Yoon took office in May 2022. Yoon and Lee briefly met at the funeral of Yoon’s father in August 2023.In December 2022, Yoon granted a special pardon to Lee, who had been serving a 17-year prison term for bribery and embezzlement, canceling his remaining prison term of about 15 years and about 8.2 billion won ($ 6.48 million) of unpaid fines.–IANSint/psd/svn