Freedom, peace, norms: Yoon sticks to familiar tune in first UN address

Posted on : 2022-09-21 17:21 KST Modified on : 2022-09-21 17:21 KST
His roughly 11-minute speech contained no direct message to North Korea
President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers an address at the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers an address at the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20. (Yonhap)

In his keynote address before the 77th UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol stressed solidarity between countries who share liberal values, but didn’t offer any direct message to North Korea.

“Threats to freedom and peace must be overcome through solidarity and fearless commitment to the framework of universal global norms consolidated over the years within the UN system,” Yoon said.

“Genuine freedom and peace can turn into reality when we are free from disease and hunger, free from illiteracy and free from want of energy and culture,” Yoon said in his first speech before the UN General Assembly since becoming president.

Yoon was the 10th leader of a UN member state to deliver a speech from the podium, following the leader of Qatar. His speech, delivered in Korean, ran for roughly 11 minutes.

Yoon emphasized freedom in his UN speech, just as he did during his inaugural address as president back in May and his commemorative message on Liberation Day, on Aug. 15. That was also evident from the title of the speech: “Freedom and Solidarity: Answers to the Watershed Moment.”

In his UN speech, Yoon said that the global community is “yet again witnessing freedom and peace of its citizens put in jeopardy” in the form of “attempts to alter the status quo by force,” “nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction,” and “systemic violations of human rights.”

“The first step in our journey [. . .] to find answers begins with solidarity and deference to the universally accepted global norms, working together [through] the UN system which has been established over the past decades.”

Yoon also called for cooperation on issues including the pandemic, the decarbonization agenda, and the digital divide, noting that “one of the most urgent tasks for the global community and the UN is promoting global cooperation.”

“As a responsible member of the international community, Korea is committed to playing its due responsibility and role for the freedom of global citizens and prosperity of the global community,” Yoon said.

Yoon listed several concrete ways of doing so: donating US$300 million to the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A); pledging US$30 million to the Financial Intermediary Fund of the World Bank; hosting a ministerial meeting of the Global Health Security Agency in Seoul this November; participating in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and stepping up green forms of official development assistance.

Kim Sung-han, director of the National Security Office, expounded upon the significance of Yoon’s speech during a briefing with reporters.

“Korea was able to make the leap from a country with a per capita [income] of less than US$100 to the world’s 10th-biggest economy and a proponent of liberal and democratic values because the US and other members of the free world who share liberal values believed in Korea and actively helped it. [Yoon] was calling on the UN to join Korea in actualizing that positive precedent,” Kim said.

As to why Yoon didn’t include a message for North Korea in his speech, a senior official in the presidential office noted that “there’s nothing to add or subtract from the ‘audacious initiative’” that Yoon unveiled on Liberation Day.

That appears to acknowledge the fact that North Korea has only upped its nuclear threat, by enshrining its nuclear arsenal in law, since Yoon promised to offer large-scale economic assistance to the North if it joins denuclearization talks.

“The part of President Yoon’s speech where he said that the freedom and peace of global citizens are under threat from human rights violations and nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction was an indirect message for North Korea,” the official added.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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