UN Chief Stresses Compassionate Multilateralism
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday emphasized the need for international cooperation in combating global problems.
Speaking at the 39th plenary session of the World Federation of United Nations Associations in Seoul, he stressed ``renewed, compassionate multilateralism.''
Ban highlighted the four cornerstones of climate change, peace and security, development, and human rights in his key global policy agenda.
``We are living through an age of multiple crises: Food. Fuel. Flu. Financial. Each is something not seen for years, even generations. But now they are hitting all at once,'' Ban said.
``These crises are compounded by other, greater challenges: Climate change and the proliferation of deadly weapons. The plight of 2 billion of our fellow global citizens living in poverty. None of these problems can be solved by any single nation acting alone,'' he added.
Ban, who was elected as head of the world organization in 2006, arrived here Sunday on a 10-day vacation. He is scheduled to give a keynote speech Aug. 13 at an international peace forum on the southern resort island of Jeju.
He is also to meet with President Lee Myung-bak next week, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Monday.
Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, will discuss with Lee a wide range of global issues, they said.
Items on the agenda will include North Korea's nuclear program, climate change, green growth and the global financial crisis, according to the officials.
Their meeting comes amid signs of a thaw in relations between North Korea and the United States, following Pyongyang's release of two American journalists last week after former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
The communist North, however, is still holding a South Korean worker months after having arrested him for ``slandering'' North Korea's political system and enticing a North Korean woman to defect to the South.
The Lee administration is afraid that it could be alienated from North Korea, which has sought to open direct talks with the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama.