The World Peace Council (WPC) expresses its serious concern about the recent resolution of the UN Security Council on the 5thof August (2371/2017) to impose new sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and its people.

The WPC stands firm in solidarity with the Korean people for its right to decide alone and without any foreign interference its fortunes and future, while we reject and denounce the threats by the US administration and its allies in the region against the sovereignty of the DPR of Korea. We condemn the increasing military exercises of the USA, South Korea and Japan in the area as well as the military presence of more than 28,000 US troops in the South of the Korean peninsula. The deployment of the US missile defense shield THAAD in South Korea constitutes a further escalation of the strategy of threats, aiming at the ability for first strike without the possibility for retaliation.

The WPC is in favor of the abolition of all nuclear weapons in the world but we do not accept the one-sided eclectically applied propaganda against the “nuclear program” of the DPR Korea. At the same time we support and demand the peaceful settlement of the differences between the USA and DPR of Korea and the replacement of the armistice agreement of 1953 with a comprehensive peace accord of the two sides.

We are historically opposed to the singling out the DPR of Korea with further sanctions that serve to hurt the people and are in reality a form of aggression or preparation for a military intervention as in the cases of Iraq and Libya before.
The legitimate concerns of the DPR of Korea cannot be met by sanctions and threats, by efforts to strangle a people in order to impose the geostrategic control of the imperialist domination, which functions as the real threat to peace and stability in the region. We remind especially these days that not only is the USA the only country which used nuclear bombs 72 years ago in its crime in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it refuses to refrain even today from a first nuclear strike option.

The WPC reaffirms its support to the Korean people’s struggle against the imperialist plans, the defense of its sovereignty, for the demilitarization and nuclear disarmament of the region and the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea.

The United Nations should respect and safeguard the principles of its founding Charter and not violate them!
The WPC Secretariat, August 9, 2017