[Teheran-ro] Teheran-ro and Seoul Street

Teheran-ro. It is the heart of Gangnam. It is where Korean start-ups and tech capital converge. The name of this glittering forest of office towers comes from the powder keg of the Middle East. Explosions are echoing in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. From Teheran-ro, where I commute every day, I write about the war in Tehran. Even the title of this column is "Teheran-ro." It feels uncanny. Will this street still be called Teheran-ro in the years to come?
The origin of the name goes back to 1977. In the 1970s, South Korea was in the middle of the oil shock. It was desperate for capital from the Middle East. The Seoul Metropolitan Government signed a sister-city agreement with the Tehran City Government and renamed Samneung-ro as Teheran-ro. Iran, in turn, created "Seoul Street (Seoul St.)" in Tehran. Countless Korean construction workers headed to the Middle East. The oil money they earned became seed money for the country’s development. It was the product of a thoroughly pragmatic and flexible diplomacy.
Half a century has passed. The fates of the two cities have sharply diverged. Teheran-ro in Seoul has become the stage of "Gangnam Style" and a symbol of capitalism. Tehran in Iran, by contrast, has become a target for U.S. military strikes. Over those years, the line between friends and foes has collapsed. What was the land of opportunity in the 1970s has turned into the biggest geopolitical risk of 2026.
A full-scale war in the Middle East is, in effect, a process of reallocating capital. Its target is the global supply chain. The United States of America (U.S.) is ready to upend the game at any time to serve its own interests. Does the word "global village" still mean anything today? Everyone is left to fend for themselves. We live in an era when security overwhelms economics—at least in the age of Donald Trump.
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has warned that "economic fragmentation" has begun. The sound of artillery fire 7,000 kilometers away in Tehran hits Teheran-ro with a time lag. Volatility in international oil prices puts brutal pressure on corporate margins. Tension in the Strait of Hormuz drives shipping and logistics costs sharply higher. For South Korea, which imports intermediate goods and exports finished products, it feels like a new security tax.
The global economy is rapidly breaking into blocs. Now, which camp’s supply chain you belong to can determine whether a company lives or dies. Far more frightening than a brief rise in costs is the complete rewriting of the rules of global trade. The calculus has grown more complicated. Korean business leaders must think first about the unfamiliar hurdles of a rapidly shifting camp logic, even before they can showcase their technological strength. The answer may lie in the "survival instinct" embodied in the 1977 naming ceremony for Teheran-ro. On the brink of national default, South Korea did not push away Middle Eastern countries that were close to North Korea on the grounds of anti-communism. It chose capital over ideology and primed the pump for the development of Gangnam. The situation is similar today, as geopolitical camps swallow economics. In any case, cold, interest-based pragmatism centered on the national interest must come first.
km@fnnews.com Reporter