Transcript
STROBE TALBOTT: I'm Strobe Talbott. I want to welcome all of you, not just on behalf of the
Brookings Institution but our Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and also our co-sponsor of
this event, the SAIS Korea Initiative. Particularly I want to thank you on behalf of Richard Bush,
here at Brookings, and Kent Calder at SAIS for coming out to be part of this event this afternoon.
I think it's a credit to the foresight of both programs to have scheduled this event for today. Richard
and his colleagues both here at Brookings and in Think Tank Row seem to have a knack for timing
these things when the subject at hand is very much in the news, as it certainly is today. I can't
imagine a more appropriate time to be talking about the Republic of Korea's domestic politics and
also its diplomatic relations.
It is for me personally a special pleasure, yet again, to welcome Ambassador Han Sung Joo. He is a
friend of the United States, he's a friend of the Brookings Institution, he's a friend of CNAPS and,
indeed, was on the advisory board of CNAPS, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, until
government service once again called him to action. And I might add he's a friend of a number of us
in this room, myself included.
I have known Ambassador Han and worked with him off and on for 10 years. We first got to know
each other when he was Korea's foreign minister and we were in harness together at the ASEAN
Regional Forum in Bangkok. He is, very much in the spirit of both of the sponsoring institutions
today—that is, the Brookings Institution and SAIS—a scholar/diplomat. And also, I might add, to a
degree that is highly unusual, he is an ambassador of immense influence both in his home capital and
also in the capital where he is posted. And we're always very glad to welcome him here to
Brookings, and particularly today, Ambassador Han, to get the proceedings under way. Thank you.
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