Young Asians urge UN to settle territorial rows

Participants of the Northeast Asian Youth Conference pose for a photo after presenting the declaration “The World We Want” to Korea’s Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, center in the second row with the copy of declaration, at Korea University in Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of UNDP Seoul Policy Center

A group of young people from China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia last Wednesday urged the settlement of regional territorial disputes in Northeast Asia and a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue to become future development goals of the United Nations.

At the Korea University campus in Seoul, 50 participants in the three-day Northeast Asian Youth Conference handed over the declaration including regional security issues to Korea’s Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, who will take it to the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Kim is one of the panelists.

The current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will expire in 2015, and the U.N. is currently in the process of compiling new ones.

Intensifying territorial disputes among the Northeast Asian nations poses a threat to security in the region, which has in recent years been becoming an increasingly important player in global affairs. The Senkaku Islands or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea are at the center of a dispute between Japan and China, and the Dokdo Islets in the East Sea is Korean territory Japan is laying claim to.

To a lesser extent, North Korea’s ambition to possess nuclear weapons is also posing a threat to security. Last month, North Korea launched a rocket to put a commercial satellite in orbit, but it’s widely believed that it was to test ballistic missile technology.

The declaration also included job opportunities, peace and security, food security, education for all, gender equality, clean and green environment and economic development.

Anne-Isabelle Degryse-Blateau, director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Seoul Policy Center, said it is important that young voices are heard in the process of making a new development agenda, for “It’s the world that they’ll be living in.”

As an organizer of the event last week, UNDP plays a role in this process on the national level by collecting different opinions from around the world.

All recommendations will be put out on the table when the High-level Panel meets in March, which will draft a development agenda to submit to the office of Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General. Ban will prepare the post-2015 development goals, and present the, during the General Assembly in September for inter-governmental discussions.

Degryse-Blateau hailed the democratic process. “This is better than the MDGs in 2000 which was made behind closed doors.”

Agreed by 193 U.N. member states and 23 international organizations in 2000, the MDGs laid out eight development goals to achieve by 2015, including eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Foreign Minister Kim who came to receive the declaration thanked the participants for their declaration. “I’ll be reporting your ideas to the UN Secretary General and they will also be reflected in the work of the panel.”

Purevdorj Erkhembulgan, head of the international cooperation division at the Ministry of Education in Mongolia, and Hirohisa Somo, economic counselor at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, attended. The Chinese Ambassador to Korea Zhang Xinsen was to attend, but couldn’t make it.

Last week’s event was organized by the UNDP Seoul Policy Center, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific’s Sub-regional Office for East and North-East Asia, the Global Compact Korea Network and Korea University. <The Korea Times/Kim Se-jeong>