Park leaves for Paris conference on Monday

President Park Geun-hye will leave the country Sunday to attend a global climate summit in Paris.

The Blue House said Wednesday that Park will attend the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP21, scheduled for Monday. World leaders will attend the meeting to work on a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol.

Heads of 138 states and government including French President Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the conference. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will also attend.

France decided to hold the international talks as scheduled in Paris despite the deadly attacks on the city by the Islamic State (ISIS) just weeks before.

In a joint news conference with Obama on Tuesday, Hollande stressed the importance of world leaders coming to the city.

“What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” Obama said.

Following the climate conference, Park will travel to Prague, the Czech Republic, to meet with leaders of the Visegrad Group from Dec. 1 to 4. The Central European group includes the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. She will return to Korea on Dec. 5.

BY SER MYO-JA [ser.myoja@joongang.co.kr]