I should like first to offer my warmest congratulations to
you, Mr. Kerim, on your assumption of the presidency
of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session. I
am confident that under your distinguished leadership
we will achieve great results during this important
session. I take this opportunity to assure you of the
Republic of Korea’s full support for your noble
endeavours.
I would also like to pay tribute to the Secretary-
General, His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his
excellent service during his first year in office. Based
on long experience of working closely with him, His
Excellency President Roh Moo-hyun of the Republic of
Korea and I have every confidence that he will
continue to fulfil his role with distinction.
Today’s global challenges require a collective
response. Ever-widening globalization has brought
with it a growing role for the United Nations. By virtue
of its universality, the United Nations is the right body
to deal with these global issues. No other organization
can provide the legitimacy and authority that the
United Nations offers. The United Nations has played
an indispensable role in setting international norms and
principles. It has pointed States and peoples in the right
direction. By enhancing predictability and rule-based
interaction between and among nations, the United
Nations is able to prevent conflicts of interest from
erupting into crises. Those are the quiet successes of
the United Nations that often go unnoticed, precisely
because the Organization helps to keep the
international system running smoothly. This aspect of
the work of the United Nations deserves full
recognition and should be further strengthened.
At the same time, the United Nations can do
better. We should persist in our efforts to strengthen the
world body through reform. This will be essential in
enabling the United Nations to respond effectively to
the most daunting challenges of our era. As steps
towards achieving that end, the Government of the
Republic of Korea fully supports the important
initiatives that the Secretary-General has taken to
promote the efficiency, effectiveness and
accountability of the Secretariat. In particular, we
appreciate his strenuous efforts to lead by example in
changing the Secretariat’s working culture.
Development, human rights and peace and
security are the three pillars of the United Nations.
They are all imperatives, and they are mutually
reinforcing. Let me begin with development. The
Millennium Development Goals agreed upon by our
leaders in 2000 have a target year of 2015. We are
already at the midpoint. It is essential that we assess
the current situation and renew our commitment. But
such actions will not be enough on their own. We need
to identify more effective means to fulfil those
commitments.
The Republic of Korea has been redoubling its
efforts to enhance its official development assistance
(ODA). We have committed ourselves to a threefold
increase by 2015 from our current ODA level. To
further support the international effort to eradicate
poverty, we have joined the air-ticket solidarity levy
initiative, an innovative source of financing for
development. At the same time, drawing lessons from
our own history of development, we place emphasis
not only on increasing the scale of our aid but also on
effectively sharing our experience with developing
countries.
An issue closely related to development is
climate change. There is a growing consensus that
climate change is placing serious constraints on
worldwide development capacity. It affects everyone
everywhere. Therefore it must be urgently addressed. I
hope that the political will shown by the leaders of
more than 150 nations at the gathering held here on
Monday, 24 September, leads to the adoption of a road
map to a post-2012 regime of realistic, tangible
solutions to this pressing concern. They should be
comprehensive and flexible enough to ensure
participation by as many countries as possible.
Turning to human rights, it is vital that the
Human Rights Council live up to the high expectations
that surrounded its creation. We must do all we can to
enable the Council to make real progress in the
promotion of human rights. Let us renew our
commitment and strengthen our joint efforts to ensure
its success. As an inaugural member of the Council, the
Republic of Korea is fully committed to the principle
of all human rights for all.
In that regard my Government is deeply
concerned about the current situation in Myanmar and
the loss of civilian lives during the continuing protests.
We strongly hope that the Government and the people
of Myanmar will work together peacefully towards
democratization and national reconciliation.
My Government has substantially increased its
efforts to eliminate discrimination against vulnerable
groups such as women, children and persons with
disabilities. We have vigorously pushed for necessary
legislation and the improvement of institutional
frameworks to protect and promote the rights of such
individuals. Also, we adopted a national action plan for
the promotion and protection of human rights in May
this year.
In the area of peace and security, United Nations
peacekeeping missions are continuing to grow in
importance as well as in the size and scope of their
activities. The strengthened United Nations Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), operating in southern
Lebanon, and the deployment of the African Union-
United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur are two
prominent examples.
Indeed, the rising demand for peacekeeping and
the broad support of the international community are
clear evidence of the crucial role of the United Nations
in maintaining peace and security. For our part, the
Republic of Korea’s recent participation in UNIFIL
testifies once again to our firm commitment to United
Nations peacekeeping activities. We will make every
effort to enable our well-trained and disciplined
Korean contingents to contribute further to
peacekeeping activities.
Peace cannot be sustained without development.
A comprehensive approach is required in order to make
the fragile peace of post-conflict situations durable and
irreversible. With the establishment of the
Peacebuilding Commission, the critical task of
consolidating peace and development has been
institutionalized. In that regard, I believe that the
experience of the Republic of Korea over the past half
century in rebuilding the nation from the ashes of war
since the 1950s could provide useful insights and
encouragements that might help the post-conflict
peacebuilding activities of the United Nations.
Terrorism continues to be one of the gravest
challenges of our times. The Republic of Korea
strongly condemns terrorism in all forms, committed
by whomever, wherever and for whatever purpose. We
fully support the ongoing global anti-terrorism efforts.
The Republic of Korea is party to 12 existing anti-
terrorism conventions, while being in the process of
ratifying the latest International Convention for the
Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. We are also
of the view that the United Nations should lose no
more time in concluding a comprehensive convention
on terrorism.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) and their delivery systems poses an
ever-increasing threat to the international community.
To curb WMD proliferation, our highest priority must
be to restore the integrity and relevance of the global
nuclear non-proliferation regime. In fact the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
regime is at a crossroads. It has faced unprecedented
challenges in recent years. In responding to those
challenges we need to pool our wisdom to strengthen
the current nuclear non-proliferation regime. The
inherent deficiencies in the NPT should be remedied,
and effective multilateral tools should be further
developed to better serve the purposes of both nuclear
non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear
energy.
As home to the world’s sixth-largest civil nuclear
energy industry, the Republic of Korea regards the
peaceful use of nuclear energy as crucial to our
sustainable energy supply and economic development.
That is all the more reason why we support
strengthened safeguards against possible proliferation
as a guarantee of the expanded use of nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes.
Among the proliferation challenges facing the
international community, the nuclear issue of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea requires our
immediate attention. That problem, if not resolved
soon, will seriously undermine the NPT regime. It also
has significant implications for peace and security in
North-East Asia and beyond. The Six-Party Talks are
the main vehicle through which to resolve the nuclear
issue of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
That process has made significant progress since its
launch in 2003. In the Joint Statement of September
2005, the six nations agreed on a blueprint for the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The
Agreement on Initial Actions, of February this year,
took that consensus another step forward, laying out
specific actions to implement the Joint Statement. We
hope that another agreement will be reached during the
new round of the Six-Party Talks now under way in
Beijing, leading to the disabling of the nuclear
facilities of the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea.
On the Korean peninsula, inter-Korean relations
will be taken to a higher level with the summit meeting
to be held in Pyongyang next week between President
Roh Moo-hyun and Chairman Kim Jong-il. The summit
will first of all aim at consolidating peace on the
Korean peninsula. The Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea will be encouraged to move forward on the
path to denuclearization. In the same vein, the leaders
will explore ways to increase mutual trust through
political and military confidence-building measures, as
well as ways to lay the groundwork for an eventual
inter-Korean economic community. With progress in
the denuclearization process, a new peace regime will
be established on the Korean peninsula to replace the
half-century-old armistice. The deepening of inter-
Korean relations and the improvement of ties between
the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and other
countries concerned will warrant such a change.
The resolution of the nuclear issue of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will thus have
a ripple effect, extending its benefits well beyond the
Korean peninsula. The denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula will strengthen the NPT regime, serving as a
useful example of a negotiated solution for similar
problems in other parts of the world, including those in
the Middle East. A peace process on the Korean
peninsula will open the path to a regional security
dialogue, and the resultant improvement in North-East
Asian security will further strengthen regional and
global cooperation for peace and prosperity.
That may be an optimistic view. But it is
important that we see not only the threats and
challenges in our world but also the opportunities. With
the ongoing Six-Party Talks and next week’s inter-
Korean summit, we see a real opportunity for change,
and we hope that our partners in this process will help
us to transform today’s uncertainty into tomorrow’s
stability and prosperity.
Our efforts in North-East Asia are a testament to
the importance of diplomacy and international
cooperation, as exemplified by the United Nations.
Even the most daunting challenges can be overcome
when nations join forces to share the burden. For the
Republic of Korea, that is a lesson we have learned
through hard experience. Ever mindful of the days
when we gratefully received the assistance and support
of the international community for our very survival,
we now try to help others, whether by working to
strengthen regional security, participating in
peacekeeping missions far from home, or sharing our
resources and knowledge. These will be our modest
contributions to the betterment of all humanity, the
noble purpose embodied in the United Nations.