Tri-Valley CAREs
Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Author: Marylia Kelley
The United States and North Korea should step back from the brink of conflagration, and, instead, adopt a diplomatic approach to prevent war, according to an urgent appeal sent yesterday to the two governments and the United Nations Security Council. Members and affiliates of the Abolition 2000 global network to eliminate nuclear weapons, of which Tri-Valley CAREs is a co-founding member, drafted the appeal.
Endorsing the appeal are 110 organizations and more than 200 additional civil society leaders from 44 countries. The appeal highlights the increasing risk of war – and the potential use of nuclear weapons by miscalculation, accident, or deliberate intent – and calls for “immediate commencement of negotiations to prevent a military conflict from erupting.” It further urges the UN Security Council to “prioritize a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”
The appeal’s signatories included parliamentarians, mayors/city representatives, scientists, academics, business leaders, medical professionals, veterans, educators/teachers, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Right Livelihood Award laureates (the “alternative Nobel Peace Prize”), religious leaders, artists, nuclear victims, lawyers, women’s organizations, youth, former UN officials & diplomats, and other leaders from civil society.
“Diplomacy with North Korea has worked in the past and could succeed again if the security concerns of all countries in the region are taken into consideration,” noted Alyn Ware, the Global Coordinator at Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and one of the coordinators for the appeal. “This could include negotiations for a North East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, which appears to have cross-party support from the three key countries - Japan, South Korea and North Korea.”
“We support this call for a diplomatic approach for North Korea,” said Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and member of Women Cross DMZ, a group of women who walked from North Korea to South Korea in support of peace. “As we experienced during our visit to North Korea, the people want peace not war.”
The appeal also opposes any pre-emptive use of force by any of the parties, calls on all parties to refrain from militaristic rhetoric and provocative military exercises, and welcomes the offers by the UN Secretary-General and the European Union Foreign Minister to assist negotiations to resolve the conflict.
Click here to read the appeal and view the signatories.