Church groups from the USA and Korea are calling for a process for easing military tension between North Korea and the USA.
From the National Council of Korean Churches
In an emergency letter to South Korean president Moon Jae-In, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) urged immediate dialogue to ease military tension in the Korean Peninsula.
In the letter, the NCCK reiterated its hope to see a peaceful reunification of South and North Korea, but tension has has caused grave concern. “To make matters worse, President Trump has declared that ‘North Korea would face fire and fury, one never witnessed by the world,’ ” states the letter. “Military tension is at its height in the Korean peninsula and there is fear of war spreading among the people.”
The lives of the people in South Korea should not be threatened by the provocative acts of the US and North Korea, said the letter.
The National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA “calls for immediate cessation of hostile acts and rhetoric between USA and North Korea”
…the NCC condemns the use of military bluster while millions of lives hang in the balance.
In the past months, we have seen aggressions by both the United States and North Korea. In May the United States deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea. This was seen as a destabilizing move by China and other neighbors and a threat by North Korea (see previous NCCCUSA and NCCK letter to President Trump on this matter). Critics point out that THAAD is incapable of countering North Korean missiles with their low-angle trajectory; thus, this so-called defensive system is being used in an aggressive manner.
At the same time, North Korea’s testing of missile technology is well known. The nation’s development of a miniaturized nuclear weapon brings destabilization unseen since the end of the Cold War, and its apparent new capacity to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles is of great concern.
Recent comments by the leaders of the United States and North Korea threatening hostilities are beyond alarming. Such threats, of “fire and fury…the likes of which the world has never seen” by President Donald J. Trump, and “all-out war wiping out all the strongholds of enemies, including the US mainland” by spokespersons of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, only serve to bring our countries, and the world, to the brink of war. We therefore urgently call upon both leaders to tone down their similar and mutually inflammatory rhetoric.
Read the whole statement here.
Image: Google maps