Churches urge to prioritize end of war for peace on Korean Peninsula

2024-05-21 13:00:13      点击：295

Officials of the cooperation body of church groups and civic organizations read a statement urging the government to prioritize the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap

By Park Ji-won

The alliance of Korean churches urged the government to prioritize the signing of a declaration ending the 1950-53 Korean War and of a peace treaty for the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the war, amid rising tension between the two Koreas.

"Through the Korean War, we learned that violence cannot achieve peace and unification… There is no point to build rivalry over the regimes of the two Koreas," the cooperation body of 14 protestant church groups and civic organizations for inter-Korean exchanges said in a statement, Tuesday.

The group stressed that the relations between the two Koreas deteriorated due to some South Korean civic organizations launching leaflets to the North, which led the North's demolition of the joint liaison office in Gaeseong. "Building peace is the only way to savethe Korean people and live harmoniously with neighboring countries," it said.

To do so, it said that an end-of-war declaration and a peace treaty should come first while seeking the disarmament and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The remarks were made to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War which falls today. A few days ago, the North used explosives to demolish the largely symbolic joint office blaming the South for letting former North Koreans citizens who defected to the South to send anti-North leaflets across the inter-Korean border. After the leaders of the two Koreas and the United States met each other in a series of summits in 2018 and early 2019, a detente has been in place. However, due to the countries' differences in dealing with the North's nuclear armament, the negotiations have been stalled, renewing diplomatic tension.

Since the formation of the alliance between evangelical churches and ecumenical churches in August 2018, they have made efforts to develop inter-Korean relations through private-sector exchanges with various activities like planting trees in the North and sending rice. It comprises 14 organizations including the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Korea, the Korean Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, the Anglican Church of Korea and the committee on reconciliation and unification of the National Council of Churches in Korea. However, they have also faced a deadlock in their peace and unification activities in the wake of the aggravating diplomatic situation.

Some also called for changing from the current paradigm of the peace movement by building symbiotic relations between the Koreas rather than simply helping Pyongyang unilaterally.

"We have been one-sidedly helping the North in the name of humanitarian aid. But it is time to change the concept so that the two Koreas can help each other," said Kang Kyung-min, pastor and co-leader of the alliance.

"The definition of national security has been changing after the coronavirus outbreak began here. Power, armament and political alliance were prioritized before the pandemic, but we started to realize that those are not the key elements to protect the people's lives. Only ecology and peace can protect us," said Na Haek-jip, pastor and co-leader of the alliance.