(KUNA) -- China has told South Korea that it will no longer take the side of its traditional ally North Korea if Pyongyang makes additional provocations after tensions spiked over the North's two deadly attacks on the South last year, President Lee Myung-bak was quoted Friday as saying, Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday. "China delivered its intentions (to South Korea) that it won't stand by the North if it makes an additional provocation," Lee made the remark during a lunch meeting with members of the parliamentary defense committee Thursday, a politician who participated in the meeting said, according to Yonhap.
It was unclear when China delivered the position. China is the North's last-remaining major ally and has propped up the impoverished, provocative neighbor with food and energy assistance and diplomatic support. Beijing has long been criticized for trying to protect Pyongyang even when the regime makes grave provocations, such as last year's sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a border island that killed a total of 50 South Koreans. The North's attacks last year sent the already frayed relations between the two Koreas plunging to their lowest levels in decades, clouding the prospects of resuming the long-stalled six-party talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
Lee also called for the parliamentary committee to endorse a series of defense reform bills this month, saying that if the envisioned reform had been implemented earlier, the South could have struck back at the North at the time of the artillery attack, according to the report.