Mongolia Forum On Northeast Asian Peaceful Development and Korean Unification

June 20-24, 2025

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About this event

Northeast Asia is home to one fifth of the world’s people and accounts for one quarter of the world’s gross domestic product. At the same time, it is still grappling with historical and territorial disputes and the need for an inclusive multilateral mechanism to address the many challenges the states of the region are facing. The interests of the region’s three nuclear weapon states, plus one nuclear armed and two nuclear capable states, are affecting the strategic atmosphere in Northeast Asia.

These challenges are compounded by increasing political tensions and an emerging arms race, especially on and around the Korean peninsula, while inter-Korean dialogue, already weak, is being discontinued. Increased great power competition and rivalry could lead to the re-forming of Cold-War era tensions in the Northeast Asian region and the Indo-Pacific in general.

That is why Northeast Asian civil society organizations are working to promote trust, stability, and mutually beneficial cooperation by recognizing the potential of the Korean peninsula as an important pillar of regional peaceful development. This demands foremost the promotion of region-wide confidence-building measures, fostering dialogue, and developing an inclusive regional security dialogue mechanism jointly addressing issues of common concern and interest. One of the prerequisites for making the Korean peninsula a pillar of stability and development is to normalize inter-Korean relations, promoting the end goal of the Korean Dream of a free and unified Korea as a new nation.

In this context, a clear vision and goal of a free and unified Korea is both an inspiration and a catalyst for stable and sustainable regional development. Thus, efforts need to be redoubled to promote the goal of Korean unification through reviving inter-Korean dialogue and broad global support for inter-Korean cooperation. This would support the aspirations of the Korean people as well as contribute to peace and stability in the region and beyond.

The Mongolia Forum on Northeast Asian Peaceful Development and Korean Unification is meant to serve such a goal. Though a relatively small country in terms of its population, economy, and military power, Mongolia maintains friendly relations with all the states of the region and promotes a proactive foreign policy. It has successively undertaken parallel political and economic reforms and has emerged as a stable democracy with a market economy. At the international level it has acquired security assurances from the five nuclear-weapon states that they would respect the country’s nuclear-weapon-free status and would not initiate any act that would violate that status. This agreement with neighboring states has demonstrated that mutual understanding and accommodation can lead to a win-win outcome for all.

This forum, the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue, and the regional civil-society-led Ulaanbaatar Process are aimed at developing an inclusive regional confidence-building dialogue mechanism. In that spirit the Mongolia Forum is working to unlock the great political, economic, and human potential of the region by promoting trust and dialogue while advancing the goals of a free and unified Korea and a stable and prosperous Northeast Asian region.

The Mongolia Forum brings together prominent policy makers in their personal capacities, experts, journalists, and civil society leaders from the region and the broader global community. Along with Korean unification issues, the forum will address the region’s current geopolitical priorities, economic integration opportunities, and regional environmental forestation initiatives. The forum will also lend support to Mongolia’s hosting of the United Nations Convention to CombatDesertification Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to be held in 2026.

The forum will also feature special meetings of young leaders in the Mongolia YouthLeadership Forum, a parallel track. Accordingly, it has welcomed and supported the establishment of the Global Peace Leadership Corps announced at the Global Peace Convention in December 2023 in Manila.

Preceding the forum, a retreat will allow participants to experience Mongolia’s unique culture and countryside, to freely exchange viewpoints and ideas “off the record,” and to participate in forestation efforts by planting trees. Participants will work toward a joint statement or declaration to guide and advance Korean unification, environmental conservation through young leadership service, and the peaceful development of Northeast Asia.

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Speakers