hankyoreh

Members of the civic group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea picket outside the presidential office in Seoul on Aug. 17, calling on the government to stop its pursuit of an alliance with Japan. (Kang Chang-kwang/The Hankyoreh)

The civic group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea gathered in front of the presidential office in the Yongsan District of Seoul on Thursday to urge the South Korean government to stop building an alliance with Japan and scrap commitments of extended deterrence.

The group criticized the upcoming South Korea-US-Japan summit scheduled for Friday as a “capitulation to the US’ strategy of upgrading relations between South Korea and Japan to an alliance in order to formulate a global alliance against China, North Korea, and Russia, as well as to Japan’s strategy of taking the position of leading military and economic power in Northeast Asia.”

Picketers seen from the War Memorial of Korea. (Kang Chang-kwang/The Hankyoreh)

The group claimed that “the joint statement from the South Korea-US-Japan summit and the ‘Camp David Principles’ will intensify nuclear confrontation on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia and turn South Korea into an outpost as well as an advance guard for the defense of the US and Japan.”

The group remarked, “If the administrations of South Korea, the US, and Japan truly want denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, they should scrap their extended deterrence policy.”

Members of the civic group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea picket outside the presidential office in Seoul on Aug. 17, calling on the governments of the US, South Korea, and Japan to scrap their extended deterrence policy if they want a nuke-free Korean Peninsula. (Kang Chang-kwang/The Hankyoreh)

By Kang Chang-kwang, senior staff writer

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