President Obama wrapped up three days in Korea on Tuesday, after attending the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit and visiting the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ), the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea. While in Seoul, he also held several bilateral meetings with the leaders of a number of countries, including Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey.
This was the second Nuclear Security Summit, after the inaugural gathering in 2010 in Washington, DC. The aim of the summit is to foster global cooperation in reducing the amount of nuclear material being produced and used for civilian purposes, as well as to increase security measures around existing material to prevent the possibility of its use for military purposes or terrorism. Though North Korea recentlyagreed to suspend all nuclear activities, the announcement of plans to launch a satellite next month has again heightened tensions on the peninsula, making the agenda of the summit all the more relevant.
President Obama also made time to address a group of students at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, a major university in Seoul.