President Lee Jae-myung said on the 8th that South Korea will continue efforts toward peaceful coexistence and shared prosperity on the Korean Peninsula through trust and dialogue grounded in firm deterrence.
In a video address to the opening ceremony of the Seoul Defense Dialogue (SDD), held at The Grand Lotte in central Seoul's Jung District, Lee said South Korea is broadening the scope for dialogue on peace and prosperity through mutual respect and cooperation, based on its self-reliant defense capability.
"The international security environment today faces an unprecedented compound crisis," Lee said. "Amid continuing confrontation and armed conflict between nations around the world, even the nuclear nonproliferation regime that has underpinned humanity's peace for decades is being badly shaken." He added that rapid technological advances, including artificial intelligence, are becoming new and unpredictable security threats.
Stressing that such problems cannot be resolved by any single country's efforts, Lee said countries must build a new model of security cooperation based not only on strong deterrence but also on international norms and shared resilience. "That is precisely why the South Korean government seeks to hold this security dialogue on a regular basis," he said, pledging to expand cooperation on peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, and supply chains, and to fulfill the country's responsibilities alongside the international community as a globally responsible power.
Lee closed by saying he hoped the conference would further strengthen the values of coexistence and solidarity and produce meaningful results for a peaceful world. "South Korea will always move forward responsibly, together with you, on the path to ending an era of division and confrontation and advancing toward peaceful coexistence and shared prosperity," he said.
