January 5, 2020
Committee of Seven to Appeal for World Peace
Kinhide Mushakoji, Yoshino Oishi, Michiji Konuma, Satoru Ikeuchi, Shin’ichiro Ikebe, Kaoru Takamura, Susumu Shimazono
The United States Government announced that US killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Iraq by drone attack on January 3. Iran predicted harsh revenge. The Iraqi Prime Minister blamed it as a clear violation of its sovereignty. Will the US Government and citizens be able to accept the killing of their military Commander if the positions of US and Iran were reverced?
We, the Committee of Seven to Appeal for World Peace in Japan, condemn the killing by US and request all parties to make every effort to settle peacefully this dangerous crisis. We urge that the members of the Security Council of the United Nations should express promptly their attitudes and UN should call the Emergency General Assembly to make every effort to settle this dangerous situation peacefully by dialogue. The Japanese Government who claims friendly relation with both US and Iran should urge immediately the US the renunciation of any escalation.
The Japanese Government decided the deployment of a Naval-Self-Defense-Forces Fleet and a patrol plane in the Middle East for “Survey and Research” not including security guard fothe r passing vessels on December 27, 2019 without any explanation to the Parliament and citizen. We repeat once again our Appeal issued on December 12, 2019: the Japanese Self-Defense-Force which is a legally limited military organization should not be deployed in and around dangerous area in the Middle East; instead Japan should develop a proactive non-military peace-building initiative.
PDF Appeal→138e.pdf