Addressing an overflow audience, Park Geun Hye, chairperson of South Korea's Grand National Party, recalled how Columbia University had been the site in 1997 of round of four-party talks involving South and North Korea, the United States, and China that were focused on ways to build a regime of lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Against the backdrop of that hopeful moment, North Korea's recent declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons came as a great shock, she said. It raises concern that the North Korean pursuit of nuclear weapons could undermine the very foundation of global nonproliferation by setting off a domino effect in Northeast Asia. If North Korea's motivation is to preserve its closed totalitarian regime, Park stressed that such a move could never guarantee regime survival. On the contrary, she said, North Korea can preserve its political system and revive its economy only by giving up its nuclear program. To this end, she called for "a comprehensive solution" along the lines of a Marshall Plan for North Korea. If this approach is taken, the North Korean nuclear crisis could be turned into "a major opportunity, since the talks could extend as far as to include the issues of missiles, biochemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as a project to build a permanent system of peace on the Korean Peninsula in the future." Stressing that it was never too late to pursue a diplomatic solution, Park cited the precedent established by former President Reagan. Despite identifying the Soviet Union as "an evil empire," he later played an historic role in negotiating a drastic reduction in the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons by engaging in bilateral talks with the Soviet leaders that eventually led to the end of the Cold War. "A diplomatic solution should not be precluded from a list of possible answers just because North Korea cannot be trusted," Park added. Recalling a meeting she had with Chairman Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, she expressed interest in meeting with him again to discuss with him in a frank and objective way all the insights gained from her current visit to the U.S. On the subject of the U.S.-Korea alliance, Park stressed the need for it to become a reciprocal relationship. "To mark a new phase in the friendship between our two countries," she suggested, "we need to put ourselves in each other's shoes." During her visit to the U.S., Park was accompanied by a GNP delegation that included: Park Hee Tae, vice speaker, ROK National Assembly; Hwang Jin Ha, chairman, Second Policy Coordination Committee; Park Jin, chairman, International Relations Committee; Koak Sung Moon, chairman, Public Relations Committee; Chun Yu Ok, spokesperson and post-doctoral fellow, chief of staff to the chairperson.