6자 회담의 재개최를 위한 한국교회의 실천방안

Abstract

The inter-Korean issues are not the Korean peninsula’s own issues but surrounding powerful countries’ ones. The six-party talks not only eases the military tensions between North and South Korea and further acts to achieve our reunification but also eases the military confrontation between the great powers. However, such six-party talks was halted since the two-stage talk gathered at Diàoyútái State Guesthouse, Beijing on September, 2007. The crisis in the Korean peninsula has increased since Kim Jong Un, a hereditary successor of three generations in North Korea seized power. The Trump administration’s ambiguous policy on North Korea and North Korea’s continuing nuclear test and ballistic missile launch test are heightening the tension in the Korean peninsula. In this paper, this author aims to look at the interests between North Korea, U.S., China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan from the North Korea-U.S. high-level talks held in Beijing on Feb. 29, 2012 that made the improvement of relations between North Korea and the U.S. possible, as a starting point, in the first place and then suggest the need to hold the six-party talks again and the roles for Korean churches to play accordingly. Six-party talks is not just an issue between North and South Korea, but provides a cushion against the military collision between the U.S. and China. China’s economic retaliation has become a reality after the THAAD deployment. In this situation, South Korea needs to have an interest in the six-party talks again and make it a reality. Like churches led a unification movement in the 1980s, the South Korean government needs to arouse the international interest and solidarity in the six-party talks in association with the World Council of Churches. In the 80s unification movement, churches expanded the issue of unification from the governmental level to the private level and developed a peaceful unification movement with the World Council of Churches. Churches are the non-profit and non-governmental area, also called as the ‘third sector.’ Religion is beyond the state control and the market economy system. Through churches, we can suggest the new paradigm for the nation and the economy and the third way. Korean churches can continue to develop the unification movement in association with the World Council of Churches and Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland. Germany is a country that was very close to North Korea since the East Germany era prior to its unification and the World Council of Churches is an international organization that has put its interest in the Korean peninsula unification issue for long years and provided cooperation. Currently, the National Council of Churches in Korea is organizing a reconciliation unification department and has kept in touch with the Korean Christian Federation in North Korea until now, thus making a common message of reconciliation and peace centering on religion. In South Korea, the old regime was changed by the 2017 presidential election and new policies on North Korea were established toward resuming the Sunshine Policy that was stopped for the past nine years and holding the six-party talks again. Korean churches must continue to deliver humanitarian aid and develop reconciliation and peace movement, by contacting North Korea through the World Council of Churches and the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland. At this point, they must raise their voice for holding the six-party talks again.