1. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha met with a delegation from the Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR), consisting of ambassadors from the permanent missions of ten ASEAN member states in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the ASEAN Secretariat is located, at the Foreign Ministry on June 25, and exchanged views on ways the two sides can work together to implement the New Southern Policy.

o Minister Kang listened to the opinions of the ASEAN side on ways to increase cooperation in the New Southern Policy’s three priority areas of people, prosperity, and peace, and asked for close cooperation from the ASEAN side in implementing the policy.

o Minister Kang also asked for ASEAN’s continued support and close cooperation to completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and establish a lasting peace on the Peninsula.

※ The Committee of Permanent Representatives is a permanent consultative body which discusses cooperation projects for the establishment of an ASEAN Community, as well as projects for substantive cooperation with dialogue partners. It plays a central role in pursuing cooperation projects between the ROK and ASEAN.

2. The visit to the ROK by the Committee of Permanent Representatives, which came after the ROK-ASEAN Dialogue, a high-level consultative forum between the ROK and ASEAN, last week, is expected to help ASEAN better understand the ROK government’s New Southern Policy, and increase the awareness of Korean people from all walks of life about ASEAN.

o The Committee of Permanent Representatives, on a visit to the ROK from June 24 to 29 at the invitation of the ROK government, will visit government agencies, the National Assembly, media outlets, universities, and ASEAN-related cooperative organizations, and engage in an extensive exchange of views on ways to step up cooperation between the ROK and ASEAN.

o In particular, meetings with members of the Korea-ASEAN Forum at the National Assembly, people from media outlets, and university students are expected to strengthen diplomacy where the people participate in implementing the New Southern Policy, and to contribute to pursuing the policy in a people-centered manner.

* unofficial translation