Seoul-Washington Forum

Transcript

CHAIRMAN LIM DONG-WON: In this two-day conference, we will deal with various issues including Korea-U.S. relations, the North Korean nuclear issue, building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, and the KORUS FTA. A comprehensive discussion of these overriding issues will truly make our Forum a meeting place for the policy communities of Korea and America, which include former government officials, think tank experts, and academics.

One of the pivotal tasks we have these days is how to dismantle the Cold War structure at the earliest possible time and build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. The fundamental cause of the North Korean nuclear problem can be attributed to the existence of the armistice, in which the United States and North Korea are still at war and have deepened their distrust and intensified their confrontation. In a war, the single objective is to defeat one's enemy. The distrust and confrontation between the two countries reached another critical point when the neoconservatives and hardliners in Washington launched a policy of "regime change" toward North Korea and North Korea responded with a nuclear weapons program and the detonation of a nuclear device.