Reasonable Cooperation and commentary on young North Korean Leader

In my speech delivered at the African Youth Development Colloquium of the University of Freiburg, Germany and recently published in The Youth Advisor Magazine, I predicted that the Swiss-trained new leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un may become the golden child of modern-day diplomacy and “long-awaited one who will relax tension and bridge the volatile gap between the West and the East…”, a move which could further pave way for beneficial diplomatic and bilateral cooperation between both regions. Today in his New Year speech, Mr Jong-Un signaled his intentions of seeing South Korea reunified with North Korea. This is a political theory which in the last administration, in the time of his late father, would have seemed a taboo. This call for reunification from this aspiring young leader is a welcome development which should be taken seriously especially by Western powers. Though to many ‘an internal North Korean/South Korean issue’, it is also a powerful diplomatic communication to the West in which he is saying “I am ready for reasonable co-operation”. Reasonable cooperation, one which the West will go into whilst respecting the territorial integrity of North Korea. How the Barrack Obama and European Union Administrations respectively receive this statement and utilize same is expected to create a decisive phase in modern diplomacy and politics as well as for the utopian age of global peace. If this cooperation happens, the benefits cannot be over-emphasized when considering what inter-change of trade, research and development, and most importantly, cooperation for world peace could bring. This move if successful also has the ability of increasing the economic viability of the two Koreas and could give birth to another economic giant in the East after China. Future cooperation and understanding if this happens will depend on the role the West plays now.

 

Ndubuisi Idejiora-Kalu

Chair

Global Issues Development Working Group 3

International Youth Council