UN General Assembly
1991

In my speech to the General Assembly at its forty-third session, I declared that a durable peace would arrive in our world the day we beat swords into ploughshares on the Korean peninsula. I said this because our own land was visited by untold trials and tribulations arising from the international imperatives of the twentieth century, and because the yoke was still upon us. However, the climate surrounding the Korean peninsula has undergone significant changes over the past years. Even before the onset of world-wide reform movements, we took the initiative of going beyond the limits of the cold war. Subsequently, we established diplomatic relations with the central and eastern European countries as well as with the Soviet Union. We also opened mutual exchanges and cooperative relations with neighbouring China.