Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited Seoul to exchange views on furthering bilateral cooperations with his counterparts. It was the first time for the foreign minister to visit South Korea in 11 years, according to the Israeli Embassy in Korea on Wednesday.

On the second day of the two-day visit, he met his South Korean counterpart Park Jin to discuss ways to expand cooperation in trade, science, technology, startups and culture, South Korean foreign ministry said. They also exchanged views on regional security.

He also attended a business seminar hosted by the Israeli embassy in Seoul and Israel economic and trade office in Korea where joint investment deals worth around $18 million for robot and artificial intelligence projects were signed.

South Korea's leading mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. and Israel's Intuition Robotics signed a contract worth $9.4 million to develop a robot to provide care for the elderly citizens.

South Korea's Everybot Inc. and Israel's Inuitive also signed a $8.2 million joint project to build an AI-based robot platform.

Since initiating bilateral collaborations on industry technology in 1998, both countries have jointly spent $77 million on some 196 projects. The two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1962.

The Israeli foreign minister led a delegation of 15 Israeli companies during his visit, the embassy explained.