TEHRAN -- Rounding off her historic three-day visit to the recently sanction-freed Iran, President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday praised the renewed bilateral partnership of the two states, highlighting the high economic yields expected in the infrastructure sector.

She also expressed hopes that such productive ties may be expanded to underdeveloped fields, such as medical care, culture and information technology.

“The outstanding construction technology of Korean companies, when combined with Iran’s momentum for growth, may lead to a mutually beneficial outcome in the infrastructure sector,” Park said at the South Korea-Iran Business Forum.

She thus cited Iran’s five-year economic development plan, which aims at taking the country to a world-level energy provider by inducing some $185 billion of investment into energy businesses by 2020.

“South Korean companies throughout the years have proven themselves capable of accomplishing key construction projects, ranging from oil refinery, hydroelectric dams, airports and harbors,” she said to some 400 business representatives of the two countries.

Park also urged the two countries to take their already-beneficial relationship to a new level by expanding into new growth sectors.

“I understand that Iran, gearing up for the post-oil generation, has been putting in a lot of effort into information technology. Korea, with its world-top level of information technology, hopes to become a reliable partner for Iran in this field.”

Cheong Wa Dae also emphasized that the summit has elicited a record-high economic outcome by bridging South Korean export companies and local Iranian buyers.

“The one-on-one business consultation meeting resulted in the clinching of 31 purchasing deals, worth $537 million in total,” An Chong-bum, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the individual business meetings on the previous day.

During the state visit, Iran’s top leaders also called for denuclearization, once again denying alleged military ties with the communist regime and thus stepping closer to partnership with South Korea. They did not, however, directly mention North Korea and its nuclear armament.

“It is our basic principle that dangerous nuclear weapons should vanish from the Korean Peninsula and from the Middle East,” said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Monday in a joint conference following a bilateral summit with his South Korean counterpart.

His remark was relatively vague, compared to that of Park, who explicitly demanded for “Iran’s cooperation” in denuclearizing the North.

“I have delivered our stance of zero-tolerance concerning North Korea’s nuclear armament, underlined the importance of implementing the related U.N. resolution, and requested for Iran’s cooperation in the given issue,” Park said in the conference.

Rouhani’s comment, though falling short of pegging North Korea, took Iranian officials by surprise with its unprecedented determination, according to senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs.

Iran, which was freed from international sanctions in January this year after clinching a compromising denuclearizing deal, has often been suspected of holding military ties with North Korea over missile and nuclear technology. The Iranian government has been denying the allegations.

Meanwhile, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader and the top religious authority of the Muslim country, sought to draw the South Korean leader’s attention to the Middle East peace agenda.

“Terrorism and regional insecurity will be even more difficult to eradicate in the future, unless we take a real and proper approach immediately,” he was quoted as saying during a meeting with the South Korean president.

“It will be beneficial for the mutual relationship of both countries if Korea paid consideration on what is important for Iran.”

Separate from the meeting with Park, the leader denounced potential U.S. leverage upon Iran-South Korean ties.

“Contracts and agreements between the two sides should be concluded in a way that foreign harmful factors and sanctions would not leave negative impacts, because it is unacceptable that the Iran-South Korea relations should be affected by the U.S. and its ill-will,” Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the ayatollah as saying.

Having assisted Ruhollah Khomeini during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and served two consecutive presidential terms in the 1980s, Khamenei is recognized as a hawkish, anti-American conservative, in contrast to the moderate reformist president.

Despite the lack of mention of North Korea or nuclear weapons, the top religious chief’s unprecedented meeting with the South Korean president is expected to add pressure on the nuclear-driven, isolated North.

By Bae Hyun-jung(tellme@heraldcorp.com)

Korea Herald correspondent