President Kim returns from Southeast Asian trip

President Kim Dae-Jung returned home Wednesday afternoon from his tour of Southeast Asian states after attending the ASEAN plus Three summit and paying state visits to Singapore and Indonesia.

During the summit talks, President Kim proposed the establishment of an East Asian cooperation framework and drew positive support from participating nations. And during tripartite talks involving Korea, China and Japan, the President proposed the resumption of the four-party peace talks and won Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's endorsement.

President Kim put forward overtures on currency swaps among member nations in order to prevent further foreign exchange crises in the East Asian region and on narrowing the gap between rich and poor with the rapid development of the knowledge and information industries.

During his official visit to Singapore, the President agreed with Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to hold ministerial talks on a regular basis and in his Singaporean Lecture, he asked East Asian countries to render their cooperation in securing peace on the Korean peninsula.

During the ensuing visit to Jakarta, he agreed with his Indonesian counterpart, Abdul Rahman Wahid, on the maintenance of close cooperation in the automobile, information-telecommunications and construction fields.

Choi Young-Mook ymook@donga.com