South Korea’s unification minister Lee In-young said he hopes inter-Korean tourism will expand to Russia and other areas once the two Koreas’ relations improve, speaking to a Russian economic forum this week.

According to the Ministry of Unification (MOU), Lee joined the 6th Eastern Economic Forum in Russia virtually on Thursday and expressed his hopes for trilateral cooperation in tourism.

Lee stressed the importance of ROK-DPRK-Russia cooperation in the future tourism industry and said he hopes to expand inter-Korean cooperation to neighboring countries, including maritime spaces and the three northeast provinces of China, “based on the New Economic Map Initiative