As President Donald Trump continues his bellicose rhetoric towards North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his trip to the Asia-Pacific region this week, organizations from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan on Monday demanded an “urgent pivot towards peace” and called on their leaders to rein in the militarization that could lead to “catastrophe.”
Trump is in Japan on Monday as he continues his nearly two-week “Indo-Pacific” tour, which will also include stops in South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. In Tokyo, Trump said (his “sidekick”) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be able to ensure his country’s safety by buying “lots of” military equipment from the United States.
But according to the civil society organizations, such a move would add to the already antagonistic stew of verbal threats, sanctions, joint U.S., Japanese, and South Korean military exercises, Abe’s controversial move to re-militarize the country, and the continued nuclear weapons possession by any state. Instead, they say, Trump, Abe, and South Korea President Moon Jae-in should “take bold steps to ensure lasting peace.”
“Washington is forcing a trilateral military alliance and provocative war drills on Tokyo and Seoul that threatens North Korea and the region,” said Christine Ahn, international coordinator of global peace movement Women Cross DMZ. “The people of Japan, South Korea, and United States oppose war. Our demands are an urgent pivot towards peace.”
Many South Koreas are putting that opposition on display. Ahead of a protest that willl coincide with Trump’s visit to Seoul on Tuesday, thousands rallied in that capitol on Sunday chanting “We oppose war! Nengotiate peace!”
According to Choi Eun-a of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements, which is among the groups calling for a national protest on the day of the U.S. president’s visit, “The South Korean public is highly critical of Trump for making threats of war and dismissing the gravity of its consequences as something ‘over there,'” apparently referring to recent comments the president made to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
“The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here, especially as he demands that South Korea pay more to host U.S. troops and set aside land for useless weapons like the THAAD missile defense system,” she added, referring to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system located at a base in Seongju, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Seoul.
“The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here.”The groups also spoke out about a series of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled to happen during Trump’s visit.
“Peace-loving people in the United States, Japan, and South Korea reject the war-mongering policies of our governments and express our friendship and solidarity with the people of North Korea,” said Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation in California, and the National Co-Convener of United for Peace and Justice. “The U.S. government must end its policy of sanctions and military threats against North Korea, cease the deployment of more weapons of mass destruction to the Korean peninsula and the region, and halt large-scale military exercises that impede dialogue with North Korea.”
The new statements come less than two weeks after U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation to prevent Trump from launching a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, and days after the Pentagon said that only a ground invasion could secure North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites “with complete certainty.”
That assessment, said 16 U.S. lawmakers, is “deeply disturbing,” and such an action “could result in hundreds of thousands, or even millions of deaths in just the first few days of fighting.”
The lawmakers, all veterans, said, the “assessment underscores what we’ve known all along: There are no good military options for North Korea.”
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