Nobel Peace Prize winners gathered outside Seoul on Monday and said that hopes of inter-Korean peace and reunification rest on the people of North and South Korea, not on their governments or outside powers.

Speaking at the 18th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, 2011 peace prize winner Leymah Gbowee said, “If peace was in the hands of the local people, between the two Koreas, I think we would be fine … But politicians are now using this war as their proxy war.”

Highlighting the local peacebuilding process in her country following a civil war that