Kerry’s visit to South Korea sparks protests

The visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to South Korea has sparked protests, with the demonstrators saying they are furious at Washington’s policies on the Korean Peninsula.
John Kerry arrived in South Korea on Friday for talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se to give fulsome US backing to military ally South Korea amid rising tensions with its northern neighbor.

The demonstrators gathered in front of the Foreign Ministry building in Seoul to protest against the ongoing military exercises between c and the US, demanding that Kerry go to North Korea for peace talks.

The anti-war activists also called for an end to sanctions against North Korea.

The protesters blamed the United States for stoking tensions between the two Koreas and accused the US military of making huge profits out of the tensions in the region.

Speaking at a press conference with his South Korean counterpart, Kerry warned North Korea against a possible nuclear missile launch, saying it would be a “huge mistake.”

“If Kim Jong-un decides to launch a missile, whether it’s across the Sea of Japan or in some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community, his own obligations that he has accepted, and it will be a provocative and unwanted act that will raise people’s temperature with respect to this issue,” Kerry said.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of escalating military rhetoric following the participation of nuclear-capable US B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers in recent joint military drills with South Korea.

On April 9, Pyongyang urged all foreign institutions, enterprises, and tourists in South Korea to leave the country, warning that the Korean Peninsula was nearing “thermonuclear war”.

North Korea declared on March 30 that it was in a “state of war” with South Korea. Pyongyang warned that if Washington and Seoul launched a preemptive attack, the conflict would “not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war.”