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China-Japan-Koreas
N. Korea refuses UNC's proposal to discuss ship sinking
2010-06-28
If you won't talk with the communists in Chapel Hill, who will you talk to?
SEOUL, June 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Sunday repeated its earlier proposal to send a team of inspectors to probe South Korea's allegations that the communist country was behind the March sinking of a southern warship, a proposal already rejected by Seoul.

Denying any role in the sinking, North Korea had proposed that it send a team of inspectors to verify the South Korean conclusion. Seoul had rejected the North's proposal and took the case to the U.N. Security Council.

Separately, the Seoul-based American-led U.N. Command (UNC) conducted its own investigation into the case, after which it proposed that the case be discussed at a Korean Armistice Commission meeting.

On Sunday, North Korea rejected the UNC's proposal, arguing that the body represents the United States and South Korea.

"It is preposterous that they conducted the 'investigation' by using the 'Military Armistice Commission' though it was beyond its mandate and it was more absurd to put the 'result of investigation' on the table of the talks," an unidentified North Korean military representative said in a message reported by the country's news agency, KCNA.

The Military Armistice Commission, set up to oversee the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953, has been in limbo since the early 1990s when North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the body after accusing it of being pro-American.

In the message to the UNC, the North Korean military representative proposed holding working talks with South Korea to discuss its plan to send an on-site inspection team to probe the incident. Seoul had earlier turned it down. If any agreement is made at the working talks, the North Korean representative said, it could lead to higher-level military talks between the two Koreas, according to the KCNA report.

"By origin, our intention was to dispatch our inspection group to South Korea from the very day the authorities linked the case with us and then open north-south high-level military talks to discuss the result of the inspection," the North's military representative said in the report. "If the South Korean authorities respond to our proposal, we will promptly come out for a working contact for the opening of the military talks."
Posted by:Steve White

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