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| ▲ First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo (C) attends the ASEAN Regional Forum during the foreign ministers' meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 11, 2025, in this photo provided by South Korea's foreign ministry. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by South Korea's foreign ministry, shows the general view of the ASEAN Regional Forum, as part of the foreign ministers' meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 11, 2025. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
S Korea-ARF
S. Korea stresses easing inter-Korean tensions, creating room for N.K. talks
By Kim Seung-yeon
KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will seek to ease inter-Korean tensions and renew dialogue with North Korea, while firmly responding to the North's nuclear and missile threats by working with the international community, a senior diplomat said Friday.
First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo made the remarks during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), a multilateral security gathering of foreign ministers in Malaysia, saying that the new government of President Lee Jae Myung will work to produce "tangible progress" toward peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Park attended a series of high-level meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week in place of the foreign minister nominee Cho Hyun, whose appointment process is still underway.
The ARF is an expanded security forum joined by the 10 ASEAN member states, the United States, China, Japan, the European Union and other countries in South Asia and the Pacific, as well as North Korea, which was absent from this year's session.
Park "emphasized that while South Korea will respond firmly to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and provocations in coordination with the international community, it will also make continued efforts to reduce military tensions between the two Koreas, build trust and create space for dialogue and diplomacy," the foreign ministry said in a release.
His remarks reflected the approach taken by Lee, who has called for pursuing dialogue with the North despite Pyongyang having severed all communication with the South amid the stalled nuclear dialogue.
Park called on the ARF to support these efforts and send a clear and unified message urging Pyongyang to denuclearize and return to dialogue.
Many participating countries expressed concern over the North's continued development of nuclear weapons and missile provocations, while acknowledging Seoul's efforts to ease tensions and resume inter-Korean dialogue, the ministry said.
Park also voiced concern over the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, stressing that any such cooperation should conform to international law and U.N. Security Council resolutions.
At the ARF, the countries also exchanged views on other regional and global issues, including the South China Sea, the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East, the ministry added.
The ARF has long drawn attention as the only multilateral meeting regularly attended by Pyongyang. But North Korea skipped this year's session, its first absence in 25 years.
Malaysia, this year's host, severed diplomatic ties with the North in 2021 over diplomatic tensions that arose after Malaysia extradited a North Korean businessperson to the U.S. for money laundering charges.
Their relations badly frayed following the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Ahead of the ARF, Park also held talks with five countries in the Mekong region -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- to discuss ways to advance cooperation in areas including climate change, rural development and the digital sector.
On Friday, Park also held bilateral meetings with the top diplomats of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and his counterpart from Malaysia.
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