The parliamentary leaders of South Korea and Russia agreed Saturday to establish a consultative body to push for cooperation between the two legislatures.

Chung Se-kyun, speaker of the National Assembly, and Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma, issued a joint statement after their talks on the sidelines of the 137th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in St. Petersburg. 

(Yonhap)

"We agreed to form a high-level committee to be co-chaired by the speakers of the two countries for close cooperation, including efforts to facilitate major projects in economy, trade and investment," they said in the statement.

The envisioned panel will convene once a year to discuss pending issues, the National Assembly said.

They expressed interest in arranging a meeting of parliamentary foreign affairs committees in PyeongChang in the near future.

They also agreed that Russian lower house representatives will participate in an international forum on Northeast Asian cooperation in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Nov. 25-27 and Korean lawmakers will attend an international meeting to prevent narcotics crimes in Moscow on Dec. 4. (Yonhap)