1. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se attended the 16th ASEAN+3 (ASEAN plus the Republic of Korea, China and Japan) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on August 6. In the meeting, the participants reviewed the progress and discussed the future direction of the cooperation among the member countries of ASEAN+3, which marks its 18th anniversary in 2015. They also exchanged views on regional issues, including issues concerning the Korean Peninsula and the trilateral cooperation among the ROK, Japan and China.

2. Minister Yun, taking note of robust functional cooperation among the ASEAN+3 countries in finance, health, education and various other sectors since the launch of the mechanism in 1997, commended the mechanism for spearheading the efforts to attain the vision of building an East Asian community.

3. Minister Yun voiced his expectation that ASEAN+3, the consultative mechanism facilitating cooperation in the region in the most systematic manner, will play a leading role in mustering capacity of the region’s countries in order to meet new, diverse challenges facing the region, such as epidemics, terrorism, the food crisis and climate change.

4. With regard to the recommendations made by the East Asia Vision Group II (EAVG II), which was formed at the initiative of the ROK, the ASEAN+3 member countries are smoothly moving forward the follow-ups to the EAVG II report by drawing up the action plans for the 21 recommendations. He also conveyed hope that the action plans will be carried out smoothly and thereby contribute to efforts to attain the vision of building an East Asian economic community by 2020, as proposed by the EAVG II.

5. In terms of the ROK-Japan-China trilateral cooperation, Minister Yun noted that the ROK, as the chair of the trilateral cooperation mechanism, had successfully hosted the first trilateral Foreign Ministers’ meeting in three years, adding that it will make proactive efforts for trilateral summit talks to materialize in 2015. He went on to comment that smooth cooperation among the three countries will have positive impact on the development of the ASEAN+3 mechanism, while contributing to peace and stability in entire East Asia.

6. In closing, Minister Yun stressed that, in a bid to respond firmly to possible provocations of North Korea and make progress toward its denuclearization, the ASEAN+3 countries should send an unequivocal and strong message to North Korea and step up cooperation among them. He also asked for the countries’ support for the ROK government’s efforts to improve inter-Korean relations.

* unofficial translation