Ghana and South Korea have signed their first visa waiver agreement, covering diplomatic and service passport holders, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has announced.
Ablakwa said he and his South Korean counterpart, Cho Hyun, signed the deal on Monday, 1 June, on the margins of the ongoing Africa-Korea Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, describing it as the first such agreement in almost 50 years of formal relations between the two countries. Negotiations will continue to extend the waiver to holders of ordinary passports. He framed the signing as delivering on priorities set during President Mahama’s working visit to South Korea in March.
The agreement caps a process that began earlier this year. After Mahama met President Lee Jae-Myung in Seoul, the two governments opened visa waiver talks and tasked their foreign ministers to conclude them by June, with Ghana and South Korea having maintained diplomatic ties since 1977.
Ablakwa also pointed to renewed ties with Jamaica, hailing the revival of the two countries’ Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) after a 21-year break. Among the outcomes was an agreement to send about 400 Ghanaian nurses to Jamaica to strengthen its health system, alongside accords on defence and tourism, with both sides aiming to complete arrangements to send Ghanaian teachers to Jamaica by August.
He commended Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, the world’s longest-serving female foreign minister, for leading the delegation to Accra, and thanked Jamaica for backing the Ghana-led United Nations resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity. Ablakwa added that Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has invited Mahama to be guest of honour at this year’s Jamaican National Day celebrations.
