▲ A man walks past signage for the Jeju Forum for Peace & Prosperity on Jeju Island on June 23, 2026, a day before the forum's opening. (Yonhap)

Jeju Forum-N Korea

N. Korean UNESCO official's online participation at Jeju Forum falls through

SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- An attempt to bring a North Korean education expert at UNESCO into a major security forum has fallen through, an official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The Jeju Peace Institute, which organizes the Jeju Forum for Peace & Prosperity, had hoped to have the North Korean expert, Dr. Chang Gwang-chol, join the upcoming forum on South Korea's resort island of Jeju via teleconference.

Chang serves as chief of education policy at UNESCO, where he has worked at regional offices in Bangkok and Dakar, and held several policy posts at the Paris headquarters. Before joining the U.N. agency, he worked at North Korea's education ministry.

His potential appearance had drawn attention as he would have been the first North Korean national to participate in the forum since its launch in 2001.

It remains unclear whether the plan fell apart because of Pyongyang's deepening hostility toward Seoul, which the North has formally designated as its most hostile nation.

This year's three-day gathering, which runs starting Wednesday, takes place under the theme "Reinventing Cooperation in a Fragmented World," with a focus on peace on the Korean Peninsula and broader regional stability through international cooperation.

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[ⓒ K-VIBE. 무단전재-재배포 금지]