Collective Security System is World Order

The President Roh stressed on June 6 that the mutual alliance and collective security system are already an universal order.

“A lot of countries form alliances with one another and join in collective security systems to preserve autonomy, security, and independence,” said President Roh at the ceremony of the 49th Memorial Day, which was held in a national cemetery in Seoul. He added, “We should cease the controversy over independence and alliance, and not take them as mutually exclusive concepts but as complementary ones.”

In regard to “the collective security system” that Roh mentioned, Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Yoon Tae-young explained, “He just explained that independence and alliance are not contradictory as a lot of countries are dealing with national security issues under the collective security system. He did not mean that Korea should take a particular line.”

In regard to additional troop dispatches to Iraq, the President Roh made clear his determined intention to dispatch additional troops by saying, “Let’s try to make progress towards a national agreement which can promote friendly relations with our old friend the U.S. and that can also be welcomed by the Arab world including Iraq.”

Before this, President Roh said that the troops dispatch to Iraq does not necessarily mean submission to the U.S. or hostility towards Iraq or Arab world at a lunch with 200 national meritorious people and their bereaved families in Cheong Wa Dae on June 5.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Cho Young-kil said that the national security of today cannot be preserved by only the own strength of a country, and that mutual alliances among countries can contribute to national security at his presentation at the Asian security conference in Singapore on June 5. He added that Korea would join in UN Peace Keeping Operation (PKO) and extend combined training with neighboring countries to cope with supranational threats.

Jung-Hun Kim Ho-Won Choi jnghn@donga.com bestiger@donga.com