1. The Asan Institute for Policy Studies (AIPS) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), with the support of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Korea and NATO, will co-host an expert roundtable on the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative (NAPCI) in Brussels, Belgium, on March 19.

2. The roundtable will mark the first-ever international meeting on NAPCI to take place in Europe. It is expected to greatly help enhance the international community’s understanding on NAPCI, one of the Park Geun-hye government’s main foreign policies; and, in terms of specific ways to implement the policy, learn from Europe’s abundant experience in multilateral cooperation.

◦ In particular, the expert roundtable will be themed “NAPCI as Confidence Building Measures (CBMs): Seen from the European Perspective,” where European experts, drawing upon Europe’s pioneering experience in building multilateral security cooperation, are expected to make various policy suggestions for building trust and cooperation in Northeast Asia under NAPCI.

◦ In addition, the participants will follow up more concretely on the first AIPS-SIPRI meeting on NAPCI held in Seoul in 2014 and seek ways for the ROK and NATO to work more closely together in implementing the NAPCI.

3. The roundtable to come in the form of a 1.5-track meeting will bring together experts in foreign affairs and security from the ROK and Europe, including NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow; Director for North East Asia and the Pacific Gerhard Sabathil at the European External Action Service (EEAS); head of NATO’s Arms Control William Alberque; Ambassador to Belgium and the EU Kim Chang-beom and Director-General for Policy Planning Shin Beom-chul from the ROK Foreign Ministry; SIPRI Director Ian Anthony; and AIPS Vice President Choi Kang. They will share Europe’s experience of successful multilateral cooperation, including its integration and the Helsinki Process, and thereby greatly help seek ways to efficiently implement NAPCI as a trust-building measure in Northeast Asia.

* Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will deliver a congratulatory video message to the participants.

5. So far, on the sidelines of diverse summit and other high-level meetings, the ROK government has explained NAPCI to leaders of many countries to help them understand and win their support for the policy. Furthermore, the ROK’s delegates have visited relevant countries, including the US, China and Japan, to explain the policy to such opinion leaders as government officials and academics and sought their support for it.

◦ In 2014, which marked the second anniversary of the creation of NAPCI, on the sidelines of multilateral and bilateral summit talks involving the US, China, Japan, Russia and other neighboring countries of the ROK, as well as the EU, ASEAN, Canada and Australia, the ROK government won support for the policy from a number of countries.

- In particular, the first-ever inter-government meeting on NAPCI on October 28, 2014, was attended by delegates from such relevant countries as the US, China, Japan, Russia and Mongolia as well as those from major global and regional organizations, including the UN, NATO and the EU.

- The chairman’s statements adopted at the ninth East Asia Summit (EAS) meeting, the 17th ASEAN+3 Summit and the latest ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit explicitly express support for NAPCI.

◦ In 2014, the ROK also held a number of international 1.5-track meetings on NAPCI, including not only the aforementioned AIPS-SIPRI meeting but also an ROK-EU academic conference and a large-scale 1.5-track forum called “the 2014 Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative Forum.”

6. The ROK government, in addition to its efforts to enhance international understanding on NAPCI, is proactively implementing concrete cooperation projects with regard to soft security issues. In particular, it is conducting various cooperation projects in areas where Northeast Asian countries need to cooperate, including nuclear safety; energy security; environment; disaster management; and drugs. 


               Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation