The World Council of Churches has called for a freeze on annual joint US-South Korean military exercises and North Korean missile or nuclear weapons tests as well as the suspension of international sanctions against North Korea in a bid to de-escalate military tensions in the region around the Korean Peninsula.
In a statement released on the weekend, the WCC’s executive committee urgently appealed to “all states engaged in the perilously escalating military confrontation in the region to refrain from further escalation and to pursue instead initiatives to reduce tensions and to create a window for new dialogue initiatives”.
“In particular, we call for a freeze on both the annual joint US-South Korean military exercises and further missile or nuclear weapon tests by North Korea, in order to enable such a window for dialogue to be opened,” it said.
Noting that “a paradigm shift in approaches to the resolution of the geopolitical challenges of the region is urgently needed”, the WCC also called for a suspension of the most recent and most stringent economic sanctions against North Korea “in the interests of reducing tensions and encouraging dialogue”. It said sanctions “have not proven effective in promoting the interests of peace, but rather have contributed greatly to the exacerbation of tensions and the risk of conflict in the region”.
The WCC also stressed the importance of both North and South Korean governments enabling “encounter, exchange and dialogue” between Christians in both countries “in the interests both of inter-church relations and of people-to-people encounter to help reduce tensions and as a contribution to opening new windows for dialogue”.
In another statement issued on Saturday, the WCC noted the 50 year anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, saying that five decades after the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, there is “still no peace and no justice among the inhabitants of the land of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection”.
“The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories continues without any political solution on the horizon,” the WCC executive committee said. “On the contrary, its matrix of control – in particular through the ever growing web of illegal Israeli settlements – is increasing rather than diminishing. The occupation strangles hopes for a jointly agreed political solution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, for a sustainable peace for both peoples, for justice and equal human dignity and rights for all, and for the realization of legitimate Palestinian aspirations for self-determination.”
The WCC also said that while the on-going occupation is a “tragedy” for Palestinians, “it is also disastrous for the Israeli occupiers – negatively impacting democracy and human rights in Israel, the State of Israel’s moral standing in the community of nations, and the conscience of the Israeli nation” and had left an “indelible stain…on the conscience of members of the international community”.
“We pray for a day in which Israelis and Palestinians will live side-by-side in peaceful co-existence, with neither oppressing nor being oppressed by the other.”
