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Russians Address the Korean War Legacy Print E-mail
By UPF - Russia   
Monday, June 07, 2010
Moscow, Russia - With tension building up in the Korean peninsula, Russian Ambassadors for Peace met with officials in Seoul to address the legacy of the Korean War and seek to prevent further conflict. In the history of the Korean peninsula’s division, Russia played a special role. Young Russians now have the chance to apply their efforts to solve the oldest conflict remaining from the Cold War. Beyond each side’s position regarding the Korean peninsula, Russians can use their historic experience of friendly relations with both sides. “Grassroots diplomacy” has often been used for preventing armed clashes, overcoming humanitarian catastrophes, and preventing international and interreligious conflicts.


On June 7, the UPF-Russia chapter officially joined UPF’s Northeast Asia Peace Initiative, and a delegation traveled to Seoul for meetings with local officials and diplomatic corps accredited to the Republic of Korea. Our proposals were presented to Mr. Kim Yang, Minister of the Korean Government in charge of patriots and war veterans’ affairs. He showed interest and assigned a member of the interdepartmental committee for organizing jubilee celebrations to meet the delegation from Russia for a detailed discussion of the project. The Republic of Korea is now preparing for a wide-scale celebration in honor of war veterans on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War - a war that formally is still not ended.

Various aspects of Russia - Korea relations were also discussed between members of the UPF delegation and the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in South Korea, Konstantin Vnukov. After being told about the details of the initiative, he generally approved our efforts in developing “grassroots diplomacy.”

Meetings and discussions in Seoul resulted in creating a preliminary schedule of events for 2010 – 2011:

  1. Organizing on the territory of the Russian Embassy in Seoul an exhibition on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War, with a detailed narrative about the participation of USSR armed forces in the conflict.
  2. Holding a scientific and practical conference in July 2010 in Moscow with the purpose of discussing the results of the war in Korea and finding ways to solve the present critical situation of the conflict.
  3. Holding in June – July 2011 a special Peace Conference in Mosocw on the theme “Way of Peace for Northeast Asia” with the participation of representatives of the opposite sides of the Korean conflict.