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Seoul / AFP
Ban Ki-moon arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for a six-day visit that has fuelled speculation the UN chief is lining up a tilt at the presidency of his home country.
Ban’s schedule involves a number of international gatherings, including a peace forum in the southern island of Jeju where he arrived late afternoon on a chartered flight from Istanbul.While he is not expected to hold any formal talks with political officials during his trip, his future has been the main topic of media coverage in the run-up to his arrival.
The soft-spoken 71-year-old will step down from the post of UN Secretary General at the end of the year—12 months before South Korea’s presidential election in December 2017. The ruling conservative Saenuri party, which suffered a shock defeat in parliamentary polls in April, has made it clear it would welcome Ban as its candidate.
Speculation over his political ambitions has been making the rounds for years but Ban has studiously declined to comment, saying only that he is focused on the remainder of his term as secretary general.