Democratic People’s Republic of Korea leader Kim-Jong Un shakes hands with US President Donald Trump during the DPRK-USA Singapore Summit on June 12, 2018. (Photo from the White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President Dan Scavino Jr.’s Twitter account)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The meeting of US President Donald Trump and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea leader Kim-Jong Un in Singapore last June 12 has gained support from a local group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).
“The world hopes that the Summit will aid in efforts to end the long drawn-out conflict between North and South Korea. Bayan supports all positive moves to achieve the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” Bayan said in a statement on Wednesday.
Bayan also recalled the summit between the two Koreas held last April 2018 that led to the signing of an agreement to “reconnect blood relations, to cooperate to eliminate military tensions, and to establish a permanent and solid peace.”
While Trump’s agenda during the meeting was for the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear program, Kim had also hinted that his country is willing to do so provided that the whole Korean peninsula is denuclearized.
“This would also mean for the US to withdraw its 28,500 US troops and military bases in South Korea, and to end provocative US war exercises. Both Japan and South Korea have been under the nuclear umbrella of the US,” the group emphasized.
DPRK had developed and tested its nuclear weapons as an exercise of sovereignty and to defend itself against US aggression, Bayan said.
“In the world today, the US has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It has operationally deployed 2,126 strategic nuclear warheads out of approximately 5,200 active warheads in its total nuclear weapons stockpiles. The US has a total of 9,200 warheads,” Bayan pointed out.
The group also traced back the pages of history when the US invaded North Korea from1950–1953.
The invasion resulted in the death of approximately 600,000 civilians and 400,000 soldiers and the destruction of the towns and cities in North Korea.
Bayan said the US goal during the invasion was to contain the advance of socialism in the region, which during that time, a move by former DPRK leader Kim Il Sung was to unify the whole Korean Peninsula after it was divided by a group of nations allied with the US.
“Bayan supports the efforts of the DPRK and the Korean people in their decades-long effort to end their conflict and to bring about peaceful reunification. We support the call and demand of the DPRK and the Korean people for the removal of US troops and weapons in South Korea. We wish for the success of the Summit and look forward to great advances in the Korean people’s cause of just and lasting peace,” Bayan said. (davaotoday.com)
