Bush told to talk with North Korea

National Catholic Reporter, July 4, 2003 by Dennis Coday

WASHINGTON -- At a three-day conference that ended June 18, Christian delegations from South Korea, U.S. church leaders and policy experts called for the U.S. government to reconvene peace talks with North Korea. These talks stopped last October when North Korea announced its previously clandestine nuclear program.

Participants called for a lowering of the confrontational rhetoric and stepped-up negotiations to defuse the crisis. The National Council of Churches and Church World Service, the council's humanitarian arm, sponsored the conference.

Citing the militant stances of both governments as an impediment to peace and stability in the region, participants pressed for normalization of relations with North Korea and greater humanitarian assistance to the region.

"We need to advance a view not of preemptive war, but of diplomatic priorities," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, the council's general secretary. "If we want to show shock and awe, we need to show love and justice."

"We are at a very dangerous moment," said Selig Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy. "North Korea is showing signs of desperation I've never seen before--for example, by their threat to sell plutonium to third parties."