Park to embark on N. American tour

By Kang Seung-woo

President Park Geun-hye

President Park Geun-hye will begin a week-long overseas trip today that will encompass a Korea-Canada summit and a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The foreign tour will be the 10th since her inauguration in February of last year and the first since June, when she visited three nations in Central Asia.

From Saturday to Monday, Park will make a state visit to Canada at the invitation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Park, the first Korean president to travel to Canada since former President Kim Dae-jung visited there in 1999, plans to meet Korean residents in Ottawa. She is scheduled to have a state dinner with Governor General David Johnston, who attended Park’s inauguration ceremony.

She will also attend a business symposium, organized by companies of both countries. An economic delegation of 48 members from Seoul will accompany Park for the conference, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

In their summit, Park and Harper are expected to seek ways of further strengthening bilateral ties, riding on the signing of a free trade agreement in March.

After the summit, Park is scheduled to head to New York to attend the U.N. Climate Summit, the Assembly's 69th session and other related high-ranking meetings including a Security Council Summit chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama on the issue of the “growing and dangerous phenomenon” of foreign terrorist fighters.

Her tour of the Big Apple will be highlighted by her speech at the General Assembly.

Park’s address is expected to reaffirm the nation's contribution to the U.N.'s main objectives ― peacekeeping and security, human rights, economic development and humanitarian assistance.

She will also call for understanding and international support for Korea’s efforts toward the Korean Peninsula trust-building process, a peaceful unification of the peninsula and the Northeast Asian peace initiative.

In addition, she is expected to refer to North Korea's human rights and the issue of Japan's enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

According to Cheong Wa Dae, Park is seeking to hold a summit with a few countries during the session.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is also scheduled to attend the General Assembly, so a focus will be on whether Park will have her first face-to-face meeting with him there.

Despite Abe's ceaseless courtship, Park has refused to sit down with him due to what she believes is his “flawed” perception of history.

North Korea will also dispatch its foreign minister to the General Assembly for the first time in 15 years.