Pope urges US and North Korea to step back to avert bloody conflict

By Park Si-soo

Pope Francis urged the United States and North Korea on Saturday (local time) to defuse their increasingly tense standoff that could lead to a bloody conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

He called for international mediation to prevent the situation from getting worse. The pontiff suggested that Norway, for example, was "always ready to help.”

“I call on them, and I will call on them, as I have on leaders of different places, to work to resolve their problems through diplomatic avenues,” the New York Times quoted Pope Francis as saying.

He made the remark aboard his plane on his way back to Rome from Egypt.

Noting that North Korea’s missile program was not a new concern, he said “things have gotten too hot” and suggested that “the United Nations has the duty to reassume, a little, its leadership because it’s been watered down.”

He warned that the crisis risked sparking a devastating war in which “a good part of humanity” would be destroyed.