1. Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha attended the United Nations Security Council ministerial meeting on the denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea chaired by Secretary of State of the United States Mike Pompeo in New York on September 27, local time. She took the opportunity to share with the other participants the progress toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, including the outcome of the inter-Korean summit talks, and asked the international community to support the efforts to achieve more tangible results in the future, such as at the US-DPRK negotiations.

° The meeting brought together foreign ministers of Security Council member states, including US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (The US is  the President of the Security Council for September),  as well as the directly concerned Republic of Korea and Japan.

2. Minister Kang, citing North Korean athletes’ participation in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in February 2018, the three rounds of inter-Korean summit talks and the US-DPRK summit in June, stated that compared with the situation on the Korean Peninsula a year ago, when the DPRK had conducted a series of nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches, the Korean Peninsula had seen unforeseen positive changes in its situation.

° The Minister noted with appreciation that there have been a series of progressive measures to achieve complete denuclearization and establish permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. Among those measures she enumerated were the DPRK’s announcement that it would discontinue nuclear tests as well as launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the adoption of the inter-Korean Panmunjom Declaration; the DPRK’s dismantlement of its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri; the adoption of the US-DPRK joint statement in Singapore; Chairman Kim Jong-un’s expression of the commitment to denuclearization at the inter-Korean summit joint press conference in September; and the adoption of the joint Pyeongyang Declaration that stipulates such concrete measures as the permanent dismantlement of the Dongchang-ri missile engine test site, and the permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yeongbyeon in exchange for corresponding measures by the US.

° The Minister stressed that in the process, the international community, led by the Security Council, had adopted resolutions on the DPRK and enforced sanctions under those resolutions, and thereby had sent a clear message to the DPRK that its pursuit of nuclear weapons program would never be accepted and the door for dialogue was kept open. She added that the ROK government would continue to work with the international community to ensure that the Council’s sanctions were faithfully implemented, as the ROK sought progress toward complete denuclearization.

° She went on to mention that the ROK would also further inter-Korean dialogue for reconciliation and better relations between the two sides, including by implementing the military agreement signed at the Inter-Korean Summit Pyeongyang with the aim to eliminate the threat of war from the Korean Peninsula.

° She emphasized that efforts toward complete denuclearization and the establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula should continue under bold, courageous leadership and the unity of the international community.

3. The Security Council member states commended the efforts made by related countries, including the ROK, the DPRK and the US, over the past months to achieve complete denuclearization and establish permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and diplomacy; and voiced hope that the international community, led by the Security Council, would continue working together to that end.

* unofficial translation