KSM to host in June the first of two International Conferences for 2021
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2021-04-29 15:27
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2021 International Conference on Peace & Development on the Korean Peninsula
– Restoring Linkages, Expanding Cooperation
June 22nd, Seoul, Korea
Much time has passed since the US-DPRK summit in Hanoi floundered in February 2019. Not only US-DPRK talks, but also inter-Korean talks have failed to find the required impetus to restart. Complicating matters, COVID-19 has added extra uncertainty as to how long this deadlock might continue as well as having destructive humanitarian implications.
It is in this situation that the humanitarian situation of North Korean citizens is of particular cause for concern. Since 2019, South Korean NGOs’ contact lines with counterparts in North Korea have gone almost completely silent. The few international staff of UN agencies and European NGOs that had remained in the DPRK until recently, have now all left the country. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in their Global Humanitarian Overview report published at the end of last year that the DPRK would not figure in the UN’s 2021 humanitarian response plan. The UN stated that an on-site COVID-19 situation assessment is impossible in the DPRK, this equates to an understanding that we no longer have the means to assess the humanitarian situation faced by North Korean citizens.
Whilst the situation is complex, we cannot cease in our efforts to improve the North’s humanitarian situation and to build peace on the Korean Peninsula. This is why the Korean Sharing Movement along with the Civil Peace Forum, the Korean Women’s Movement for Peace, and the American Friends Service Committee, sponsored by the Seoul Metropolitan Government are hosting the 2021 International Conference on Peace & Development on the Korean Peninsula on June 22nd. We feel this is also a timely opportunity to gather in that the US Biden administration is in the final stages of completing its DPRK policy review. The host organizations believe this conference can serve as a forum to seek strategies for reestablishing linkages with the DPRK, to see how cooperation expands beyond the humanitarian sphere, and to see how this cooperation becomes a platform for building peace on the Korean Peninsula. We request that you join us (online) at this important event.
Tuesday June 22nd (Korean standard time)
10:40 ~ 12:00 Plenary 1: DPRK’s Humanitarian Situation & International Access to the DPRK in 2021
13:30 ~ 15:00 Plenary 2: Humanitarianism, the Right to Development, and Peace on the Korean Peninsula
15:15 ~ 16:45 Plenary 3: Expanding, Reestablishing Contact with North Korea –Experience & Strategies from Civil Society
(Participation links will be posted on our website in due course.)
