MANILA — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has welcomed the development in the Korean Peninsula with the reopening of communication line between South Korea and North Korea.
“The Department is happy with the recent developments in the Korean Peninsula,” said Geronimo Suliguin, officer-in-charge for the DFA-Office of Public Diplomacy.
As recent chairman to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Philippines has vigorously pushed for peaceful resolution on the issues facing the Korean Peninsula.
On the sidelines of the 2017 ASEAN Regional Forum, the lone security summit where Pyongyang sends its top diplomat to participate in an international dialogue, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said the bloc is willing to serve as a “peacemaker” if the reclusive state would give an opening for discussion.
The hermit state continues to suffer stiffer sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), pressuring them to stop their nuclear weapons program, which in 2017 alone accounted to more than a dozen ballistic missile tests.
The reopening of hotline, which raises hopes for dialogue, was announced by North Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday, the day after South Korea made an offer for talks months after threat of hostility loomed over the region.
Per the United Nations (UN), this communication channel, established in August 1972, was cut in February 2016 by Pyongyang after Seoul decided to close the inter-Korean industrial zone of Kaesong, in the wake of a nuclear test by the DPRK.
On January 3, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, quoted by his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, said he welcomes the steps being taken by the involved parties but maintained that the organization will ensure the implementation of UNSC resolutions on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. (Joyce Ann L. Rocamora/PNA)