Press Briefing
Deputy Spokesperson Sun Nahm-kook
Jul. 26, 2016 14:30 KST

Good afternoon. Let me start today’s briefing.

As Spokesperson Cho June-hyuck is accompanying the Foreign Minister on his visit to Laos, I will provide a briefing today.

Today, I have three announcements to make.

First, as you may be aware, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is on a visit to Laos from July 24 to attend ASEAN-related foreign ministerial meetings as well as bilateral meetings or conversations with major countries. I will brief you on the outcome of main meetings.

Let me start with the ASEAN-related foreign ministerial meetings. Minister Yun attended the foreign ministerial meetings between the Republic of Korea and the countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion on July 24; between the ROK and ASEAN on July 25; and of the ASEAN+3, of the East Asia Summit (EAS) and of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on July 26.

At the Mekong-ROK meeting, Minister Yun explained the ROK’s efforts to support the ASEAN Community, including narrowing the development gap in the ASEAN region, and agreed with the other participants to work more closely down the road.

At the ASEAN-ROK meeting on July 25, the two sides reviewed the progress in the implementation of the “ASEAN-ROK Plan of Action 2016-2020” adopted at the ASEAN-ROK Foreign Ministers’ meeting in August 2015 and ways to cooperate in that regard.

Given that the year 2017 had been designated by the ROK President as a year of ROK-ASEAN cultural exchanges and will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of ASEAN, an ASEAN Culture House will be set up in Busan to boost two-way cultural exchanges. This was also discussed in the meeting.

At the ASEAN+3 meeting earlier today, July 26, the ROK, China and Japan joined the ten member states of ASEAN and discussed with them ways to work together.

The ASEAN+3 is a consultative mechanism that covers specific ways for cooperation, including through the Chiang Mai Initiative and the Emergency Rice Reserve initiative.

Later today, Minister Yun will attend the foreign ministerial meetings of the EAS and the ARF, during which he will speak about the ROK’s position on North Korean issues and muster the resolve of the member states to make North Korea change its strategic calculus.

On the sidelines of the ASEAN-related meetings, Minister Yun met bilaterally with his counterparts from not only such major countries as the US, China and Japan but also Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith of Laos, the host of the ASEAN meetings, and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. He also held pull-asides or conversations with delegates from 15-odd countries, including Russia, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore.

In those meetings and conversations, Minister Yun asked the countries to thoroughly implement Security Council resolutions while upholding the principle of non-tolerance for a nuclear North Korea, and to send to North Korea a tough message with warnings against further provocations.

Moving on to the second announcement, Ambassador for Overseas Koreans and Consular Affairs Han Dong-man will preside over a meeting with missionary groups on July 26.

At the meeting, the Foreign Ministry will ask heads of Korean missionary groups to pay serious heed to the safety of their missionaries overseas amid frequent indiscriminate terrorist attacks on soft targets and the possibility of North Korea’s attacks on ROK nationals.

Lastly, the first in the Foreign Ministry’s series of the “people as public diplomats” projects for 2016 was successfully conducted in Myanmar from July 17 to 22.

The “Sinabro” team, composed of five students of Seoul Yeongsang High School, conducted video-based public diplomacy activities for some 100 high school students in Yangon, Myanmar. The activities included providing information on the production environment of Korean films and soap operas, teaching video production techniques and producing a video on Korean and Myanmarese cultures.

Starting with the “Sinabro” team’s Myanmar project, the Foreign Ministry will conduct a variety of original public diplomacy projects for foreigners at home and abroad until the end of the year.

We ask for your keen interest in these projects.

Thank you.


(A question-and-answer session followed.)


* unofficial translation