President Yoon Suk-yeol spent Sunday preparing for his first overseas trip as president on the eve of his departure to Spain for a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), officials said.

Yoon plans to attend the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday (local time), which will mark his debut on the multilateral diplomatic stage since taking office last month.

South Korea is not a member of the military alliance but has been invited as a partner nation, along with other countries that include Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Yoon is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings with leaders from Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and the Czech Republic to discuss ways to expand economic cooperation, according to his office.

On the sidelines of the NATO gathering, Yoon could hold a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. (Yonhap)