NGOs meet in Mongolia to hold Civil Society Six-Party Talks for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Northeast Asia

GPPAC Ulaanbaatar Meeting, May 24-25, 2007

TOKYO – Civil society groups from Northeast Asia will meet late May in Mongolia, a unique non-nuclear country, to hold a parallel forum to the governmental Six-Party Talks to discuss ways to create a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) and achieve peace in the region. Non-governmental experts and activists from Seoul, Beijing, Taipei, Vladivostok, Tokyo and others, including from North America, will participate. Pyongyang has also announced its will to send a delegation to this civil society-led meeting.

After a long stalemate since 2005 and the destabilizing nuclear test last October, the governmental Six-Party Talks have recently agreed on the initial steps for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, only a partial implementation of such steps has been made, including lifting of the sanctions on the US part. There are still many difficulties to overcome before realization of the agreed goals, namely, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, normalization of diplomatic relations, and creation of a regional peace mechanism.

The civil society meeting will be held on May 24-25, 2007, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, organized by the Northeast Asian network of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The GPPAC Northeast Asian network has met annually since 2004 and provided a forum of dialogue on such issues as Korean nuclear crisis, the Taiwan Strait, history issues and territorial disputes in the region. However, there has been no participation from North Korea. The upcoming Ulaanbaatar meeting would therefore be the first meeting where all the Six-Party and other related parties be represented at civil society level, to make joint efforts to gear up the governmental process and to go beyond to create NWFZ and establish a lasting peace mechanism in the region.

The meeting will be hosted by the Mongolian NGO Blue Banner, which promotes the country's declared status of “single-state NWFZ,” which is endorsed by UN resolutions since 1998. The participants, consisting of former diplomats, academics, and grassroots activists, will discuss on how they can learn from the lessons of Mongolia to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free and peaceful Northeast Asia. From Pyongyang, the Anti-Nuke Committee has announced their intention to send a delegation.

For more information, please contact: Watanabe Rika and Kawasaki Akira / Peace Boat
Tel +81-3-3363-8047 Fax +81-3-3363-7562
gppac@peaceboat.gr.jp

For more information about GPPAC, please see the following links:
www.gppac.net" www.gppac.net
www.peaceboat.org/english/rsic/gppac/index.html