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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| SKorea seeks UN action against NKorea over ship |
| 2010-06-05 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] South Korea on Friday referred the alleged sinking of one of its warships by a North Korean torpedo to the U.N. Security Council despite a threat of retaliation from its communist neighbor. "Today, the Republic of Korea government referred the matter of North Korea's attack against the Cheonan to the United Nations Security Council," President Lee Myung-Bak said in a speech to an annual security forum in Singapore. Lee mentioned no sanctions but called the March sinking of the corvette, which left 46 South Korean sailors dead, a "military provocation" and dismissed the North's denials of involvement as "laughable". Tensions have soared on the peninsula since a multinational probe concluded last month that a North Korean torpedo caused the blast that tore apart the Cheonan in the deadliest peacetime incident for Seoul since the end of the Korean War in 1953. "If we think that after a while North Korea's action will be condoned and that stability on the Korean Peninsula will somehow be maintained, then we would be fooling ourselves because North Korea would once again resort back to attacking others," Lee said. "North Korea must admit its wrongdoing; it must pledge never again to engage in such reprehensible action. This is in the interest of peace. This is in the interest of North Korea." In a question-and-answer session, Lee said "nobody wants a war" but South Korea and its closest ally the United States "will respond" if needed. Lee said that "if the enemy continues to taunt us and think that they can do whatever they want, they must understand that there is a limit ... that they have to suffer the consequences." U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was also attending the forum, said joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises may be put off to allow time for Seoul to secure diplomatic support at the Security Council. "I think there's a sequencing involved in this and it may be there's a desire first to see what can be accomplished at the U.N. and then think about next steps beyond that," Gates told reporters on the sidelines of the conference. Lee's speech followed a warning by a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman of "the toughest retaliation" if Seoul elevated the matter to the Security Council, accusing Washington and its allies of "an ulterior motive." The incident has stalled efforts at trying to revive six-nation talks on ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons which have been on ice since Pyongyang walked out in April last year. A North Korean diplomat had warned Thursday that cross-border tensions were running so high that war may break out "at any moment." Ri Jang-Gon, the country's deputy permanent representative at the U.N. in Geneva, warned that Pyongyang was "ready to promptly react to... various forms of tough measures including an all-out war." |
| Posted by:Fred |