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Korea Peace Appeal: End the Korean War
The campaign aims to end the Korean War and achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula by collecting 100 million signatures of the Korea Peace Appeal from 2020, the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, to 2023, the 70th anniversary of the armistice agreement. More than 300 South Korean civil society organizations, religious groups, individual supporters and international partner organizations are participating in the Korea Peace Appeal. Peace Boat is proud to be one of the partner organisations participating in the campaign since its launch.
The Korea Peace Appeal calls to:
- End the Korean War and establish a peace agreement
- Create a Korean Peninsula and a world free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threat
- Resolve the conflict with dialogue and cooperation instead of sanctions and pressure
- Break from the vicious cycle of the arms race and invest in human security and environmental sustainability
It is time to End the Korean War.
Soon after achieving liberation from Japanese colonial rule, the Korean Peninsula was divided into North and South as an effect of the Cold War and experienced the tragedy of the Korean War. The Korean War left millions of casualties, countless separated families and has not formally ended since the signing of the Armistice Agreement in 1953. Decades of political and military confrontation and hostile relations from the Cold War have led Koreans, both on the Korean Peninsula and in the Korean diaspora worldwide, to endure an interminable period of pain. It is time to end this pain.
We must not go back to the days dominated by hostility and anxiety.
In 1991, after the global Cold War ended, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) agreed upon mutual respect and non-aggression. In 2000, the two Koreas held their first summit which opened an era of comprehensive exchange and cooperation. In 2018, the first-ever DPRK-US summit took place along with three inter-Korean summits. Since the war has not officially ended, however, a vicious cycle in which trust easily turns into distrust leading to rising tensions has repeated over and over again for the last 30 years.
History has proven that hostile policies aimed at discrediting and forcing one side to yield have failed to resolve the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, instead only aggravating it. The Korean Peninsula under the unstable armistice system has suffered from threats of nuclear war and has fueled a global arms race and nuclear proliferation. Without a formal end to the Korean War, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will not be achieved. We call upon the governments involved to take sincere and responsible action:
End the Korean War Now.
Let’s change the Korean Peninsula from a symbol of confrontation and conflict into a birthplace of peace and coexistence together with peace-loving people around the world.
We imagine a future where the people of the Korean Peninsula, East Asia and the world cooperate and coexist peacefully. We hope our resources will be used for people’s safety and happiness, for environmental sustainability and a society without discrimination instead of preparing for war. Now, let’s end the Korean War now with our own hands and let’s make a future that could not be achieved for the last 70 years. Let’s shout out loudly together so that our desperate wish for peace reverberates around the world.
Learn more and sign the Appeal here!
