UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Philippine Foreign Minister Alan Peter Cayetano on Saturday called for patience and listening in building peace.
"The path to peace must be walked with patience. To achieve any purpose with others -- be they powers or people -- patience is needed. The opposite of patience is impatience -- the cause and aggravation of conflict," Cayetano told the UN General Assembly.
He warned against impatience over the situation in the Korean Peninsula, saying there is no chance of success for a surprise attack.
"In a situation like the present, where every finger in and around the Korean Peninsula is on a trigger, every eye is out for a wrong move, the likelihood of a surprise attack is virtually zero. In that situation, no one can be caught by surprise and unprepared to strike back," he said.
"So what is there to lose by going on talking and listening until the very last moment?" he asked.
The Philippines, on its own, and as this year's chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has expressed its grave concern over the growing tension in the Korean Peninsula because of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s missile test launches and nuclear detonations, he said.
"The Philippines joins the call on the DPRK to put a stop to its provocations, which bring us closer to an unimaginable scenario: a war to end all wars because no one will be left to fight new ones."
"In a war of all against all, of everyone each against the other, the last man standing is not at peace, he is but a single piece. He is not the victor, he is simply alone."
Talk is better than war, and listening is even better than talking, he said. "We must listen to others more than we listen to ourselves. Hopefully we know what we are talking about. But others may know what we do not. We can learn only if we stop talking, and listen."
