The 6th international conference ‘Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security’ has started today (5 May) at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia. The two-day event is being attended by over 200 delegates from more than 15 countries such as Russia, China, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Sweden as well as representatives from the EU, UN and Red Cross. The event is being covered by journalists from over 20 countries.

The conference will consist of the two plenary sessions on ‘The Northeast Asian Security Environment: Opportunities and Challenges’ and ‘Cooperation and Competition Dynamics in Northeast Asia’ and the three parallel sessions on ‘Promoting Energy Cooperation in Northeast Asia’, ‘Humanitarian Challenges in Emergency Situations’, and ‘Inclusion of Youth, Peace and Security: Perspectives for Dialogue in Northeast Asia’. During the conference, establishing the Northeast Asian Power Grid and using rich renewable sources of Mongolia will be discussed.

Since the 1980’s, Mongolia has been consistently pursuing the policy of launching a dialogue mechanism in Northeast Asia. These efforts yielded the ‘Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security’ initiative in 2013 and the first international conference was organized in 2014. Since 2017, the conference has been upgraded to 1.5 level gathering together both government officials and academia. This dialogue forum is now evolving into an open and inclusive mechanism, bringing together representatives from all countries in the sub-region. Discussion topics cover a broad range of issues including security, energy, infrastructure, green development, opportunities of humanitarian cooperation and others.