Madame Park Geun Hye, South Korean National Assembly Member and former Vice-President of the country’s Grand National Party, opened a significant conference on the international relations of the Korean peninsula yesterday (Wednesday 3 April 2002).

On the same day that South Korea’s envoy arrived in North Korea to hold reconciliation talks with the country’s leaders, Madame Park argued that the Korean peninsula "has the potential to become both ‘an axis of peace’ and an ‘axis of conflict’".

Although supportive of the principle of engagement with North Korea, she believes that the government should not rush towards a "quick fix unification". Relations with North Korea should be governed by three main policies: building a non-partisan national consensus for unification in South Korea; insistence on North Korea observing agreements; and the establishment of inter-Korean institutions to guarantee co-operation and peace between the two countries.

Dr John Swenson-Wright, organiser of the conference, anticipates lively discussion over the next three days.

"The conference is an excellent opportunity for policy-makers, business leaders, journalists and commentators on international affairs as well as academic specialists, to discuss the key challenges currently facing the peninsula. We will be analysing the contemporary situation, anticipating likely trends, and discussing policy proposals for dealing with particularly pressing issues."

"Korea as a 21st century power" is being held at the University of Cambridge, until Saturday 6 April 2002.

Further details of the programme can be found on the conference website at:
http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~jhs22/korea/


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