South Korean President Lee Myung-bak Saturday asked Asian and European leaders attending the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Beijing to actively support his policy bid to denuclearize North Korea through the stimulation of various inter-Korean economic cooperation projects.
In a speech at a working luncheon of ASEM leaders, Lee also called for greater global support for his campaign to link the two Koreas by natural gas pipelines and railways, which will eventually extend to Russia and Europe, according to Yonhap News Agency.
"North Korea's nuclear weapons are a serious threat to the whole world, as well as to South Korea," Lee was quoted as saying, asking the European and Asian leaders to show greater interest in the denuclearization of the communist North.
"While persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, South Korea is promoting mutual prosperity and co-existence and measures to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula. One of the measures is to connect South Korean railways with European railways via North Korea and Russia," said the President.
Lee then gave a detailed explanation of his policy efforts to import Russian natural gas through a North Korean pipeline and discussed a concerted international effort to denuclearize North Korea.
"The U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan are now in the process of verifying North Korea's declared nuclear programs. In the next stage, the five countries will patiently attempt to scrap the North Korean nuclear weapons program."
Lee and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed at their summit in Moscow in September to ship Russian natural gas through a pipeline to South Korea via North Korea starting in 2015.
Under the contract signed between Korea Gas Corp. and Russia's Gazprom, the Russian side is to send at least 7.5 million tons of natural gas annually for a period of 30 years through a long-distance pipeline running from Vladivostok in Russia's Far East to South Korea through North Korea.