On September 7, 2015, the Russian International Affairs Council held the presentation of the Russian-South Korean working paper "Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia" authored by Russian Ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov and Director of Institute for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Seoul National University Beom-Shik Shin. The event was attended by diplomats, government officials, members of academia and expert community, and journalists.
On September 7, 2015, the Russian International Affairs Council held the presentation of the Russian-South Korean working paper "Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia" authored by Russian Ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov and Director of Institute for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Seoul National University Beom-Shik Shin. The event was attended by diplomats, government officials, members of academia and expert community, and journalists.
The presentation was opened by RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov and Ambassador-at-Large Grigory Logvinov, after which Ambassador Ivashentsov and Professor Beom-Shik Shin described the results of their joint project, focusing on regional security challenges and threats, nuclear problems of the Korean Peninsula, mutual trust among states and future dialogue of Northeast Asian countries on energy, peaceful atom, transportation, food and international information security.
The presentation was followed by a discussion moderated by RIAC Deputy Program Director Timur Makhmutov, the key issues including territorial disputes in Northeast Asia and their role in relations between Russia and Republic of Korea, the need for regional multilateral partnerships for advancing the intergovernmental dialogue, as well as objectives and tasks for building the regional security architecture.
Summing up the proceedings, Ambassador Ivashentsov said: "Russia regards South Korea as a partner. Our strategic cooperation is not confined to the bilateral issues. Moscow and Seoul should cooperate in handling regional and global security matters because all countries of the world are interconnected as never before. And small steps are needed to move to issues of paramount importance." He also suggested regarding the joint report as the first stage in cooperation of Russian and South Korean pundits.
In his closing statement, Professor Beom-Shik Shin stressed the enormous interest to the situation in Northeast Asia on the part of Russian experts: "As compared with the 1990s, the interest to the regional developments seems notably higher. What I see is the enthusiasm and commitment of the researchers, which means that we must strengthen our strategic interaction. The joint document of Russian and South Korean scholars definitely makes the first step along this path."
