Intellectuals from South Korea, U.S. and Japan call for peace in security in Northeast Asia

Posted on : 2009-08-21 10:44 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Academics and intellectuals urge Obama and Lee to take advantage of recent visits to North Korea to engage in talks and honor wishes of late President Kim DJ
 Pastor Kim Sang-geun
Pastor Kim Sang-geun

Korean, American and Japanese intellectuals issued a joint statement on Aug 20 calling for peace and security in Northeast Asia and for U.S. President Barack Obama and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to come up with a fundamental plan to reduce North Korea-U.S. confrontation in order to end what they are calling a vicious cycle of hardline responses.

Seoul National University Honorary Professor Paik Nak-chung, University of Tokyo Honorary Professor Wada Haruki and Harvard University Harvard-Yenching Institute Senior Project Manager Edward J. Baker convened a press conference at the Korea Press Center in Seoul’s Jung-gu on Thursday morning. The estimated 110 intellectuals are urging both heads of government to resolve the crisis in Northeast Asia through dialogue and compromise and to take the opportunity presented by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun’s recent visits to North Korea.

The statement calls on the U.S. and North Korea to immediately begin talks, to exchange envoys, and to be amenable to open or closed-door talks or bilateral and multilateral talks. As a first step, they are calling on the two countries to rearticulate their respect for mutual sovereignty that served as the standard in the 2000 North Korea-US joint communique.

In order to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, they call on nuclear states in Northeast Asia like the U.S., Russia and China to start nuclear reductions of their own. They also cite the need for Northeast Asian disarmament talks that includes not only weapons of mass destruction but also conventional weapons. To the South Korean government, they advise that it respects the inter-Korean summit agreements reached by the previous administrations.

Meanwhile, the press conference participants expressed their condolences over the death of former President Kim Dae-jung and ruminated over the significance of the June 15 Joint Declaration. One of the signatories, Professor Wada Haruki, said their statement was an expression of will to advance the new age opened by the 2000 inter-Korean summit, and to follow the dying wish of the late president.

Korea University Honorary Professor Kang Man-kil, Seoul National University Honorary Professor Paik Nak-chung and poets Ko Un and Shin Kyung-lim are among the Korean intellectuals who are participating in the call for dialogue. At last count, 110 intellectuals, including 44 from South Korea, 30 from the U.S. and 30 from Japan, have endorsed the statement. U.S. MIT Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy Noam Chomsky and Yale University Senior Research Scholar Immanuel Wallerstein, renown for world-systems theory, 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Oe Kenzaburo, University of Tokyo Honorary Professor Wada Haruki and famous literary critic and ideologue Kojin Karatani are among the intellectuals from the U.S. and Japan that are participating.

  

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