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Congratulatory remark by H.E.Mr. Gleb A.Ivashentsov Ambassador of the at the International Symposium on
Establishment of Peace Regime on the |
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(Seoul, May 30th, 2007) |
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am grateful to Mr.Lee Hae-chan, Chairman, Northeast Asia Peace Committee, The Uri Party, and Mr.Yoo Jay-Kun, President, Uri Party Foundation for the invitation to the International Symposium on Establishment of a Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula.
This is a very topical issue for my country, Russia, as the decades old military stand off on the Korean Peninsula aggravated by the nuclear problem is the main threat to peace and security in the Northeast Asia.
Russia has been and will ever be an integral part of the Northeast Asia. To tell you more, in no other region are our internal and external interests so interconnected as in the Northeast Asia. For it is necessary to guarantee external security for the economic development of Siberia and the Far East. And the national security of Russia can be guaranteed only by forming military, political and strategic relations with our neighbors in the region based on the �security through partnership and co-development� principle.
The unsettled nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula is of a direct concern to Russia as the DPRK conducted the nuclear test on October 9th 2006 at a site which is located at a distance of just 177 kilometers to our border, which is less than the distance from there to the DMZ between North and South Korea. We do not like such a situation. We need neither nuclear and missile tests at our border, nor a saber rattling by anyone.
Therefore we in Russia sincerely
welcomed the resumption of the Beijing Six-Party talks on the nuclear issue of
the Korean Peninsula and the accords of the February 13th. My
country is continuously working in favour of the denuclearisation of the Korean
Peninsula and the DPRK�s return to the NPT as we think that the settlement of
that issue should become a kind of starting point in turning the whole of the
Northeast Asia into a zone of peace, security and cooperation.
The nuclear problem of the Korean
Peninsula should not be viewed in isolation from the general world situation.
In the conditions when the factor of force in the international relations is
getting more and more manifested and the language of ultimatums and sanctions
is widely used, certain countries feel themselves infringed and try to protect
their security by all means including radical ones.
It does not mean however that the international
community should not react to such behavior. Russia does not recognize the DPRK
as a nuclear power as that would have given an utterly undesirable example to
other countries. At the same time we are confident that all work on settlement
of the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula should be done in the context of
providing security guarantees to all countries of the region viz. the DPRK, the
Republic of Korea, Japan etc. Such guarantees are to be solid and convincing
ones so that no one would have suspicions in regard to security. It is very
important to avoid any actions that could lead to aggravation of tension around
Korea and the situation coming out of control.
In addition to the settlement of the
nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula Russia is prepared to make her
contribution to the inter-Korean normalization as well. We constantly stand in
favour of building bridges between Seoul and Pyongyang and are prepared to
promote the multilateral infrastructural and other economic projects on the Korean
Peninsula.
We think that the participation of
the DPRK in such projects as an international railway corridor between Europe
and Korea as well as its joining programs of creating in Northeast Asia an
integrated electric power grid and pipelines� net would serve further
development of mutually beneficial and good-neighbourly relations between two
Korean States and help strengthening peace and security on the Korean
Peninsula.
The developments on the Korean Peninsula will to much extent determine the future of not only the Northeast Asia but the whole of the Asia Pacific Area and the world processes. I would like to single out two major moments.
On one hand the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula could create a
precedent for settling similar problems in other regions of the world and could
become thereby an important contribution to the strengthening of the nuclear
weapons non-proliferation regime in general.
On the other hand the Six-Party talks represent a case of a multilateral
decision-making on a hottest international issue which is utterly important in
the present world conditions. It is on such basis only and not by one-sided
forceful reactions that we could today stabilize the disbalanced system of
international relations and help its deideologization and demilitarization.
I with success to the work of
symposium!