1. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will visit New York, the US, from September 25 to October 1 to accompany President Park Geun-hye, who will attend the UN Sustainable Development Summit and the 70th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). He will also attend high-level meetings as well as bilateral and minilateral meetings with his counterparts from other countries during the UNGA session.

◦ During the period of the UNGA session, Minister Yun will attend high-level meetings on climate change and refugees; minilateral meetings with a number of regional consultative mechanisms, including a MIKTA foreign ministers’ meeting and an ROK-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) minister-level strategic dialogue; and bilateral meetings with his counterparts from about ten countries.

2. During the visit, the Republic of Korea will take the opportunity of the largest-ever UNGA session in the UN history to carry out active diplomacy at multilateral, minilateral and bilateral levels. As such, the visit is expected to contribute to the ROK’s efforts to increase its role and contributions regarding main global issues; to expand its global networks; and to win cooperation with regard to the North Korean nuclear issue and other issues concerning the Korean Peninsula.

◦ In particular, amid the recent rise in the possibility of a strategic provocation from North Korea, a series of foreign ministers’ meetings will be held with member states of the UN Security Council and other major countries on the sidelines of the UNGA session. These meetings are expected to contribute to stepping up international coordination to deter provocations from North Korea.

◦ In addition, the ROK will explain its active role in addressing what has emerged as the biggest international issues, -- climate change and refugees -- thereby strengthening its humanitarian diplomacy.

◦ The series of bilateral foreign ministers’ meetings and minilateral meetings where Minister Yun will engage in one-on-many diplomacy on the sidelines of the UNGA session are expected to have the effect of expanding the ROK’s global networks and enhancing strategic communication with major regional consultative mechanisms.

3. President Park Geun-hye will attend summit-level meetings on development cooperation, climate change and education, etc. to convey the ROK’s willingness to contribute to the global agenda. Meanwhile, Minister Yun will attend high-level meetings on climate change and refugees, etc. to enhance the international community’s perception of the ROK government’s humanitarian diplomacy.

◦ On September 29, Minister Yun will attend a foreign ministerial session of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) to explain ways that the ROK will help successfully establish a new climate regime in late 2015.

- The MEF meeting will be chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who also presided over the foreign ministerial Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER) in Anchorage, the US, in late August, to make a success of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

◦ On September 30, Minister Yun will attend a high-level meeting on migration and refugees, which will be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, where the Minister will explain the ROK government’s position on the refugee situation in Europe, which has emerged as a key international issue, and ways that it will contribute in that regard.

4. As in 2013 and 2014, Minister Yun will seek active minilateral cooperation with MIKTA, the GCC, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) during the UNGA session.

◦ At their meeting on September 26, the foreign ministers of the MIKTA member countries will review the achievements of MIKTA, which has established itself as a mechanism of middle power countries aimed at creating a public good for the international community; seek new and more original ways to contribute to the resolution of key regional and global issues, including climate change, development cooperation, terrorism, the Syria issue and the situation on the Korean Peninsula; and announce a joint statement conveying MIKTA’s willingness to actively exert leadership for the conclusion of negotiations on a new, post-2020 climate regime and its implementation thereafter.

◦ The ROK government, which is vitalizing strategic consultations with leading regional consultative mechanisms of the Middle East in order to deepen its relations with the region, will hold the first ROK-GCC minister-level strategic dialogue and the third meeting with the Secretary-General of the Arab League on the occasion of the UNGA. The meetings are expected to greatly help broaden the ROK’s diplomatic horizon with the most important minilateral cooperative mechanisms on politics and economy in the Middle East and build comprehensive partnership with the Middle East.

◦ On September 29, Minister Yun will hold a meeting with his counterparts from CELAC’s Cuarteto countries. At its meeting of national coordinators in August 2015, CELAC, the largest regional cooperative mechanism in Latin America and the Caribbean with all of the 33 countries in the region as its members, chose the ROK, China, India, Russia and Turkey as its key cooperation partners from outside of the region. At the forthcoming foreign ministers’ meeting, the participants will discuss in depth ways to step up the ROK-CELAC cooperation in the future.

5. On the sidelines of the UNGA session, Minister Yun will also meet bilaterally with his counterparts from about ten countries, including the UK, Germany, Iran, Angola, Croatia, Albania, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, the UAE, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

◦ The foreign ministers’ meetings with the UK and Germany will carry significance as opportunities to reaffirm bilateral relations for close strategic communication with the leading members of the EU.

- The meeting with Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Hammond of the UK will come after the ROK-UK minister-level strategic dialogue held in Seoul in August and at the request of the UK government for further consultations on pending issues concerning the Korean Peninsula and the global community.

- At the forthcoming meeting with Foreign Minister Steinmeier of Germany, the fifth of its kind over the period of the past one and a half years, the two sides will coordinate the main outcomes to be produced during German President Gauck’s planned visit to the ROK from October 11 through 14.

◦ At the meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif of Iran, the second of its kind following the one held in 2014 on the sidelines of the then UNGA session, the two sides will discuss in depth the North Korean nuclear issue, the last-remaining issue facing the international nuclear non-proliferation regime since the conclusion of the Iranian nuclear deal in July, and ways that Korean companies can expand their presence in Iran after international sanctions on the countries are lifted.

◦ In his meeting with Foreign Minister Chikoti of Angola, Minister Yun will ask Angola, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, to take an active part in the united efforts of the Security Council to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea and deter strategic provocations from the country.

◦ An ROK-US-Japan trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting and an ROK-Japan foreign ministers’ meeting will also be held.


* unofficial translation