A welcoming ceremony for the first Palestinian leader to visit South Korea was held at Seoul Airbase in Sungnam.

Abbas later held bilateral talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the presidential Blue House in the capital to discuss how to strengthen bilateral ties.

South Korea and the Palestinian Authority established diplomatic relations and opened representative offices in 2005.

Seoul has provided about 33 million dollars for Palestine´s economic development since 1991 and two million dollars for reconstruction work at the Gaza area in March last year.

Before his visit to Seoul, Abbas said at a seminar in Tokyo that Palestinian leaders had not set specific terms on which they would accept a U.S. offer to mediate indirect peace talks with Israel.