KOREAN PEACE
COMMITTEE
A New Zealand-based campaign
to promote peace on the Korean peninsula and to advocate resolution of issues
between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on the
basis of peaceful negotiation between states in accordance with the Charter of
the United Nations.
Call for peace in Korea
We, the undersigned citizens of New Zealand, join with Americans of goodwill in calling on the US government to engage in meaningful negotiations with North Korea to
We further call on the New Zealand government to endorse these moves to produce a peaceful resolution of the crisis and to support progress towards a secure, de-nuclearised, prosperous and eventually peacefully re-unified Korea on the basis of sovereignty and security from aggression, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. We propose also that the NZ Government initiate or combine with like-minded Member States of the UN to promote a resolution at the UN General Assembly embodying the moves outlined in this statement.
The present crisis was sparked by George W. Bush’s abandonment of Bill Clinton’s Agreed Framework of 1994 and by his invasion of Iraq. This has led to the reactivation of the Yongbyon research reactor that is capable of producing plutonium, and a statement that North Korea is now building a ‘nuclear deterrent force for self-defence.’ These dangerous developments can only be averted through sincere negotiations, with both sides being willing to compromise. To say, as the US does, that it will only talk after North Korea unilaterally disarms is to refuse to negotiate, and can only deepen the crisis. We urge all parties to negotiate with a commitment to finding a peaceful and sustainable resolution. We further urge that no party take steps which will exacerbate the situation, including arms buildup, weapons testing, and provocative military exercises. In particular we call upon the United States and its allies to refrain from interdiction in international waters and airspace which would violate both international law and the Korean armistice.
China, Russia, and especially South Korea, have made it clear that peaceful negotiation is the only acceptable solution. Pyongyang has repeatedly denied US charges that it is engaged in the export of drugs, counterfeit money, or the sale of nuclear materials and missiles to terrorists. These issues could in any case only be laid to rest in negotiations.
Relations between the two Koreas are developing positively, with continued family reunions, the reconnection of the railways and the recent ground-breaking for the large South Korean industrial park to be built in the North’s border city of Kaesong.
Republican Congressman Curt Weldon on his return from Pyongyang in June 2003 reiterated the position that North Korea has conveyed on previous occasions. It will give up nuclear programmes and weapons, and allow full verification, if the US will sign a non-aggression pact, move towards normalisation of relations, and cease interfering in its economic relations with South Korea and Japan. This is basically what President Clinton promised in the Agreed Framework.
We support the statement of Korean and US religious leaders at a meeting in Washington in June 2003 sponsored by National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service. They called for:
We also endorse the Charter of the United Nations which seeks to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and the settlement of international disputes in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.
Issued Wellington, 15
August 2003
Supporting individuals and organisations
To sign on to the campaign
email Tim Beal or write to Christine
Dann at P.O. Box 46, Diamond Harbour 8030, NZ.