Candlelight vigil held in December 2017 in Seoul for the peace of the Korean Peninsula.
The National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) has welcomed the signing of the agreement seeking a formal end to the Korean War and the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula, at a summit in South Korea.
‘We strongly support the agreement to replace the armistice treaty with a peace treaty by the end of this year, and to build a long-lasting and stable peace in the peninsula through complete denuclearisation’, said a NCCK statement.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) said it ‘celebrated this moment as an affirmation of long-held ecumenical hopes and dreams for peace and reconciliation among the Korean people’.
‘The World Council of Churches and the worldwide ecumenical movement join with all people of good will in celebrating the historic contributions made by today’s Inter-Korean Summit to the growing movement for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula’, said WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit. ‘The reported commitment by both leaders to actively pursue the replacement of the Armistice Agreement with a Peace Treaty this year – thereby formally ending the Korean War – would, if achieved, be the realisation of a call promoted by the National Council of Churches in South Korea, the Korean Christian Federation in North Korea, and the World Council of Churches for many years, but long dismissed as impossible by political “realists”. But peace is possible.’
Tveit stressed that the signing of a such a peace treaty ‘will be the start, not yet the end, of the work for a sustainable and secure peace for current and future generations of people in the region.’
Read the full statement on the WCC website.
