Concept of National Security

Concept of Foreign Policy

“Third Neighbor” Policy

The Foreign Policy Concept, adopted by a resolution of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia on February 10, 2011, outlines Mongolia’s commitment to “expand and develop partnership relations and cooperation with Western and Eastern countries, including the United States, Japan, the European Union, India, the Republic of Korea, and Türkiye, within the framework of the ‘third neighbor’ policy.” To implement this policy, Mongolia actively fosters bilateral and multilateral relations across political, economic, defense, cultural, and humanitarian spheres with developed nations.

Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone initiative

At the 47^th Session of General Assembly in 1992, Mongolia declared its territory as a single-State nuclear weapon free zone with the aim to implement the priority of Mongolia’s foreign policy and safeguard its security and vital national interests by political and diplomatic means. In 28 years, it has been pursuing to create a legal basis as well as status internationally guaranteed by Member States of the United Nations.

Mongolia’s declaration of its territory as a single-State NWFZ has been widely welcomed and supported by the international community and consequently, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution on “Mongolia’s international security and nuclear-weapon-free status” in 1998.

The resolution “Mongolia’s international security and nuclear-weapon-free status”, adopts every two years since 1998 and invites Member States of the UN to cooperate with Mongolia in strengthening its “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, the inviolability of its borders, its economic security, its ecological balance and its nuclear-weapon-free status”.

As a result of negotiations of Mongolia with the P5, the P5 adopted a Joint Statement in 2000 and a Joint Declaration in 2012 in support of the status.

Ulaanbaatar Dialogue

Since the 1980’s Mongolia has been consistently pursuing the policy to create a dialogue mechanism in Northeast Asia. These efforts yielded the “Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security” initiative in 2013 and officially announced it to regional countries.

The ultimate goal of the Initiative is to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula and help promote confidence building and peacemaking in Northeast Asia. 

Within the “Ulaanbaatar Dialogue Initiative”, Mongolia has hosted a series of events focused on Northeast Asia that aimed to promote a confidence building among the regional states. Such as, International Conference “Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security issues”, “Northeast Asian Women Parliamentarians meeting”, “The Northeast Asian City Mayor’s forum”, Conference on Northeast Asian Energy Connectivity, Northeast Youth Symposium for Regional Cooperation respectively took place in Ulaanbaatar. 

The International Conference “Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security” has been annually held since 2014. Conference 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. 

Each Conference was attended by more than 200 international and national delegates and representatives of the government entities, the United Nations and other international organizations and academia. The Government invitees to the conference include not only the Northeast Asian countries – China, the ROK, the DPRK, Japan, Russia and Mongolia, but also officials from other continents, including Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, the European Union and others. 

Since 2017 the conference upgraded to 1.5 levels gathering together both government delegates, wherein diplomats and officials usually express and justify official position, on Track 1 and academia on Track 2.