1. During her visit to the United Kingdom from July 17 to 19, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha delivered an address under the theme “Future of the Korean Peninsula” at Chatham House*, and had a Q&A session on July 19.

o The event, moderated by Director of Chatham House Robin Niblett, brought together about 100 people from academia and the media in the UK.

* Chatham House, officially called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, took its name from the building where it is based.

2. In her address, Minister Kang said that since its inauguration, the incumbent ROK government had put the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula at the center of its foreign policy, and adhered to three principles to achieve the goal.

o The Minister said that the three principles were △ensuring a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons through complete denuclearization, △establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, including by replacing the armistice agreement with a peace agreement, and △pursuing co-prosperity of the ROK and North Korea based on denuclearization and a peace regime. She stressed that the ROK government had been actively making diplomatic efforts towards them.

o Minister Kang said that in the process, there had been accomplishments, including inter-Korean summits and US-North Korea summit, the adoption of the Panmunjeom Declaration and the US-North Korea Joint Statement, and follow-up dialogues and negotiations between the ROK and North Korea, and the US and North Korea.

3. Minister Kang asked the UK, the ROK’s key ally and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to continue to support the ROK government’s North Korea policy, as collaboration between the ROK and the US, and support from the international community are essential to create a virtuous cycle between inter-Korean and US-North Korea dialogues.

4. The audience showed an active interest in prospects for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the roles of neighboring countries. Minister Kang said that the ROK would continue diplomatic efforts to make tangible progress in denuclearization by keeping the momentum of dialogue alive in close cooperation with neighboring countries based on collaboration between the ROK and the US.

o Minister Kang’s address at Chatham House served as an opportunity to explain the ROK government’s efforts to achieve complete denuclearization and establish a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula to key opinion leaders in the UK, and thereby help them better understand the current situation on the Korean Peninsula, and the ROK government’s North Korea policy.

* unofficial translation