ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN REPUBLIC OF KOREA, 14-16 MAY

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nane Annan arrived in Seoul from Vienna on Sunday morning, 14 May.

In the evening, they attended a dinner in their honour hosted by the Chairman of the United Nations Association in Korea, Park Soo-gil.

Monday morning, 15 May, the Secretary-General made remarks and held a question-and-answer session with students at Seoul National University.  In his remarks, he urged the young Korean men and women gathered to advance the high standard of global citizenship, already set by their elders.

“I count on you to sustain our shared dream of peace for the next generation -- here on the Korean Peninsula and beyond,” he said. (See Press Release SG/SM/10462.)

He engaged in a lively question-and-answer session with the students, taking some 17 questions from the audience, ranging from the work and challenges of the Secretary-General and his views on Africa, to the role of student organizations in the world today, and ways to tackle the growing gap between the rich and poor.

He then attended a working luncheon by the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Kim Duk-kyu, with other National Assembly members.

In the afternoon, he met with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, the Republic of Korea’s official candidate for Secretary-General of the United Nations, and they held a joint press conference afterwards.  Among the questions the Secretary-General answered, were some on the country’s relations with Japan, as well as the nuclear issues concerning Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In a separate programme, Mrs. Annan visited the International Vaccine Institute, the Republic of Korea’s first international organization, created as an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme in 1997.  Mrs. Annan toured the state-of-the-art laboratories and heard about the Institute’s work to accelerate development and distribution of vaccines to fight diseases in developing countries.

Mrs. Annan also attended a lunch meeting with eight prominent Korean women, hosted by the Minister for Gender Equality and Family, Ha-jin Jang, where they discussed Korean women’s participation and progress in society.

In the afternoon, she met about 40 representatives of Korean governmental organizations and civil society, as well as people living with HIV/AIDS, to hear about their work on issues such as HIV prevention, treatment, stigma and discrimination.

In the evening, the Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan went to a dinner hosted by the Foreign Minister and his wife.

On Tuesday morning, 16 May, the Secretary-General had a meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun at the Blue House in Seoul.

Then, after attending a luncheon hosted by the President and his wife, the Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan visited the National Museum of Korea.  They then left Seoul for Tokyo, to begin a two-day official visit, the third leg of the Secretary-General’s five-nation trip to Asia.