Koreas 'on brink of war,' warns North
Source: Agencies |
November 27, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
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NORTH Korea warned yesterday that US-South Korean plans for military maneuvers put the Korea Peninsula on the brink of war, and appeared to launch its own artillery drills within sight of an island it showered with a deadly barrage this week.
The fresh artillery blasts were especially defiant because they came as the US commander in South Korea, General Walter Sharp, toured the South Korean island to survey damage from Tuesday's North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.
None of the latest rounds hit South Korea's territory, and US military officials said Sharp did not even hear the blasts, though local residents on other parts of the island panicked and ran back to the air raid shelters where they had huddled earlier in the week.
Tensions have soared between the Koreas since North Korea's strike destroyed large parts of Yeonpyeong Island, killing two civilians as well as two marines in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the sea border.
The skirmish forced South Korea's beleaguered defense minister to resign on Thursday, and President Lee Myung-bak yesterday named a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kim Kwan-jin, to the post.
The US has sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korean waters for joint military drills in the Yellow Sea starting tomorrow.
North Korea, which sees the drills as a major military provocation, unleashed its anger over the planned exercises in a dispatch.
"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the report from its official Korean Central News Agency said.
A North Korean official said Pyongyang's military "precisely aimed and hit the enemy artillery base" as punishment for South Korean military drills - a reference to Tuesday's attack - and warned of another "shower of dreadful fire," KCNA reported in a separate dispatch.
The North Korean government does not recognize the maritime border drawn by the US-led UN forces in 1953, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island its territory.
Yeonpyeong Island, home to South Korean military bases as well as a civilian population of about 1,300 people, lies only 11 kilometers from North Korean shores and is not far from the spot where the South Korean warship sank in the explosion in March.
General Sharp said during his visit to the island that Tuesday's attack was a clear violation of an armistice signed in 1953 at the end of the three-year Korean War.
"We at United Nations Command will investigate this completely and call on North Korea to stop any future attacks," he said.
Washington keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect its ally from aggression - a legacy of the Korean War that is a sore point for North Korea, which cites the US presence as the main reason behind its need for nuclear weapons.
Dressed in a heavy camouflage jacket, army fatigues and a black beret, Sharp walked down a heavily damaged street strewn with debris from buildings. Around him were charred bicycles and shattered bottles of soju, Korean rice liquor.
AP photographers at an observation point on the northwest side of Yeonpyeong heard explosions and saw at least one flash of light on the North Korean mainland.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
The fresh artillery blasts were especially defiant because they came as the US commander in South Korea, General Walter Sharp, toured the South Korean island to survey damage from Tuesday's North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.
None of the latest rounds hit South Korea's territory, and US military officials said Sharp did not even hear the blasts, though local residents on other parts of the island panicked and ran back to the air raid shelters where they had huddled earlier in the week.
Tensions have soared between the Koreas since North Korea's strike destroyed large parts of Yeonpyeong Island, killing two civilians as well as two marines in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the sea border.
The skirmish forced South Korea's beleaguered defense minister to resign on Thursday, and President Lee Myung-bak yesterday named a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kim Kwan-jin, to the post.
The US has sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korean waters for joint military drills in the Yellow Sea starting tomorrow.
North Korea, which sees the drills as a major military provocation, unleashed its anger over the planned exercises in a dispatch.
"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the report from its official Korean Central News Agency said.
A North Korean official said Pyongyang's military "precisely aimed and hit the enemy artillery base" as punishment for South Korean military drills - a reference to Tuesday's attack - and warned of another "shower of dreadful fire," KCNA reported in a separate dispatch.
The North Korean government does not recognize the maritime border drawn by the US-led UN forces in 1953, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island its territory.
Yeonpyeong Island, home to South Korean military bases as well as a civilian population of about 1,300 people, lies only 11 kilometers from North Korean shores and is not far from the spot where the South Korean warship sank in the explosion in March.
General Sharp said during his visit to the island that Tuesday's attack was a clear violation of an armistice signed in 1953 at the end of the three-year Korean War.
"We at United Nations Command will investigate this completely and call on North Korea to stop any future attacks," he said.
Washington keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect its ally from aggression - a legacy of the Korean War that is a sore point for North Korea, which cites the US presence as the main reason behind its need for nuclear weapons.
Dressed in a heavy camouflage jacket, army fatigues and a black beret, Sharp walked down a heavily damaged street strewn with debris from buildings. Around him were charred bicycles and shattered bottles of soju, Korean rice liquor.
AP photographers at an observation point on the northwest side of Yeonpyeong heard explosions and saw at least one flash of light on the North Korean mainland.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
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