Cho Tae-yeol: "If I had met North Korea's Choe Son-hui, I would have conveyed the willingness to dialogue"

Speculation on Choe Son-hui Attending UN General Assembly Fails
"Urging North Korea to Respond to Dialogue and Cooperation Proposals"

During the high-level week of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Cho Tae-yul, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is visiting New York, USA, stated on the 26th (local time), "If I had been able to meet with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui during this General Assembly, I would have directly conveyed our government's willingness and proposals for dialogue."

Minister Cho made these remarks at a press briefing held at the Korean Mission to the UN in New York on the same day.

There had been speculation that North Korea might send Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui ahead of the UN General Assembly, but she did not come. Instead, Foreign Minister Choe visited Russia during the General Assembly period.

Minister Cho said, "North Korea has consistently remained unresponsive to our humanitarian aid offer for flood damage relief and our proposal to establish a dialogue consultative body. At the same time, it claims itself as a responsible nuclear-armed state, publicly revealing its uranium enrichment facilities and repeatedly threatening to exponentially increase the number of its nuclear weapons."

He added, "We strongly urge once again that North Korea immediately halt its nuclear and missile development, take measures to improve the human rights and livelihoods of its people, and respond positively to our proposals for dialogue and cooperation."

Furthermore, Minister Cho said that during this visit to the United States, he actively worked to expand international support for the realization of the '8.15 Unification Doctrine.' The 8.15 Unification Doctrine, announced by President Yoon Suk-yeol on August 15th last month, sets the goal of unification as freedom-based unification.