Moscow and Seoul committed themselves to "pursuing cooperation in developing a Korean civilian launch programme as well as joint manned flight programmes," a bilateral declaration said.

This cooperation is "aimed at preparing the first South Korean astronaut by 2007," added the statement signed by Russian President Vladmir Putin and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun.

South Korean Science and Technology Minister Oh Myung, also present at the Kremlin talks, told reporters that his country had long dreamed of sending one of its citizens to space.

"Many years ago, our country got interested in the Mir orbital space station project successfully carried out by Russia," he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

"It was exactly then that we decided we wanted to train our own astronaut and carry out a space flight," Oh added.

An official from Russia's Rosaviakosmos space agency said that the two sides had signed a series of documents on space cooperation.

"Alongside the training of the South Korean astronaut and joint development of new space rockets we plan to establish a new enterprise to produce microchips for mini-satellites," said the official Vyacheslav Davidenko.

Roh arrived in Moscow late Monday accompanied by a delegation of South Korean business leaders and his three-day visit to Russia was also expected to include signing of a number of bilateral business contracts.

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