Dear Friends:
North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile test on July 4 was a sober reminder of how badly relations have deteriorated between Washington and Pyongyang. As I explained on
Democracy Now! North Korea views advancing their missile and nuclear programs as a hedge against a pre-emptive strike by the US, and unless there is an end to hostilities, we will likely see more and more of such tests.
The good news is that South Korea's newly elected President Moon Jae-in has called for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. "We should make a peace treaty joined by all relevant parties at the end of the Korean War to settle a lasting peace on the peninsula," Moon announced in Berlin ahead of the G-20 Summit.
President Moon’s calls for a peace treaty resonate deeply with sentiments from both South Koreans and Americans who want diplomacy with North Korea. In my column for Foreign Policy In Focus,
Americans and South Koreans Want Peace: Will Trump Listen? I highlight how recent polls have found 80 percent of South Koreans want inter-Korean dialogue and 60 percent of Americans want direct talks with North Korea.
In fact, timed with the Moon-Trump Summit in Washington last week, over a dozen national peace organizations circulated a letter to President Moon informing him that Americans supported his calls for diplomacy with North Korea. Thanks to many of you, over 150,000 Americans signed the petition. Before the letter was delivered to the South Korean Embassy, our allies stopped in for a photo op with Congressman John Conyers, the last Democratic representative who served in the Korean War.
We believe the tide calling for engagement and diplomacy is rising, and that is in part due to the great collaborations among groups who share a common cause but have not historically worked together.
On June 13 the Korea Peace Network (KPN) which is co-chaired by Women Cross DMZ and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) held a successful conference, “Off-Ramps to War: Paths to Building Peace with North Korea” at George Washington University. To a packed audience, University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings gave a comprehensive account of how we arrived at this crisis stage today on the Korean Peninsula, and former Secretary of Defense William Perry delivered a moving keynote reflecting on his experiences in negotiating with the North Koreans.
We also held two panels on the unresolved conflict's impact on families of US servicemen and Korean-Americans, and another with humanitarian aid and development experts involved in on-the-ground initiatives in North Korea. Both panels brought home the important message that engagement is the best path forward to achieve peace, help reunite families and improve the daily lives of ordinary people in North Korea. You can
watch all these presentations on Youtube from our events page at www.womencrossdmz.org.
Thank you for your steadfast support.
In peace and gratitude,
Christine Ahn
International Coordinator
Women Cross DMZ
