Among the groups is Presbyterian Peace Network for Korea
from Presbyterian Peace Network for Korea | Special to Presbyterian News Service
Photo by m_h via Unsplash
LOUISVILLE — A Tuesday statement signed by 110 U.S. organizations and more than 200 international groups calls on the Biden administration to suspend annual combined military exercises with South Korea in order to restart diplomacy with North Korea.
Those groups signing the statement include the Presbyterian Peace Network for Korea.
In the statement, the groups say that these “costly and highly provocative war exercises” — which are based on operation plans that reportedly include pre-emptive strikes and “decapitation measures” against the North Korean leadership — heighten military and political tensions on the Korean Peninsula. As such, the groups say such measures are a major obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the ongoing 70-year-old Korean War. Suspending these war drills “will be a major confidence-building measure,” the groups say, and will “create the conditions for genuine diplomacy with North Korea in order to finally resolve the security crisis on the Korean Peninsula.”
“At a time when the world is facing urgent humanitarian, environmental, and economic crises, these military exercises divert critically needed resources away from our capacity to provide true human security such as healthcare, a sustainable environment, and other priorities,” the statement says. “Furthermore, they heighten geopolitical tensions and risk re-igniting a hot war on the Korean Peninsula, which would have catastrophic consequences for millions of people.”
“These war drills are expensive, provocative, and consistently provoke North Korea to take military actions in response,” said Retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel Ann Wright of the Korea Peace Campaign of Veterans for Peace. “If the United States’ goal is to reduce tensions, not increase them, then suspending these military exercises will be an important step forward.”
Hyun Lee of Women Cross DMZ and Korea Peace Now! said, “The majority of citizens on the Korean Peninsula want peace talks, not war drills and military confrontation. It’s their lives that are at risk from the possibility of military exercises leading to mistakes and accidents that may cause disastrous military confrontation.”
Individuals can add their voices to the call for suspension of military exercises by signing this petition.
Organizing groups are Korea Peace Campaign of Veterans for Peace; Korea Peace Network; Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network; Peace Treaty Now; Women Cross DMZ; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Civil Peace Forum; Korean Women’s Movement for Peace; and South Korean Committee on June 15th Joint Declaration.
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