President Park Geun-hye returned home on March 29 after completing her seven-day trip to the Netherlands and Germany. This is her seventh overseas trip since inauguration, and the second overseas visit this year.

During her trip, President Park attended the Nuclear Security Summit held in The Hague on March 24 and 25 where she also held trilateral summit talks with leaders from the U.S. and Japan. During the summits, President Park and world leaders reaffirmed the principles of jointly dealing with North Korean nuclear arms issues and that the country must give up its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable, irreversible and complete way. She also made progress on the resumption of six-party talks concerning the North Korean nuclear missiles issue.


President proposes vision of a world without nukes

President Park proposed her vision of a world without nuclear weapons in her keynote speech at the opening session of the 3rd Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 24. The president made a four-point proposal to strengthen the international nuclear nonproliferation framework. Her proposals include taking an integrated approach on nuclear security, nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation, establishing regional mechanisms to guarantee nuclear security, bolstering international cooperation to improve nuclear security capabilities among countries, and, finally, taking measures to cope with cyber terrorism that might target nuclear facilities.

The president firmed up international support to resolve the North Korean nuclear arms issue among the participating world leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit, where she declared her belief that denuclearization should begin on the Korean Peninsula. She also helped in the production of the nuclear security summit's final report. Together with the U.S. and the Netherlands, Korea played a leading role in writing, “Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation.”


President states desire for peaceful reunification of Korea

During the three-day state visit to Germany from March 26 to 28, President Park laid the foundation for bilateral cooperation on unification and in other sectors. Germany is one of Korea’s strongest partners in terms of peaceful unification and the creative industries. During summit talks with German President Joachim Gauck and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, they all agreed that Germany would share its experiences of unification and socio-economic integration with Korea by building multiple layers of cooperation between the two countries.

In this regard, Korea and Germany agreed to bolster the activities of the Korea-Germany Joint Consultation Committee so that Germany would be able to share with Korea its experience of unification. The two countries also agreed to form cooperation networks involving financial authorities and economic policy research institutes in order to systemically study economic integration and the financial issues surrounding German unification.


In the former East German city of Dresden on March 28, President Park announced her vision of a peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula. At a ceremony awarding her with an honorary doctorate from the Dresden University of Technology, she presented three steps to North Korea that it must take in order to help move toward reunification, winning international support for her vision of a new Korea. These steps include boosting people-to-people exchanges between the two Koreas, planning for prosperity through systemic, sustainable cooperation between North and South and, finally, boosting cooperation and exchanges between Pyongyang, Seoul and international organizations. The president announced that her administration will usher in an era of peaceful unification with the establishment of a presidential committee that will prepare for unification.



By Wi Tack-whan, Yoon Sojung
Korea.net Staff Writers
whan23@korea.kr