N. Korean guns silent as South's drills go ahead
December 21, 2010, Tuesday
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South Korea's military staged live-fire drills from an island just kilometers from rival North Korea's shores yesterday, despite Pyongyang's threats of catastrophic retaliation for the maneuvers.
Seoul launched fighter jets, evacuated hundreds of people from its tense land border with North Korea and sent residents of front-line islands into underground bunkers in case of attack, but North Korea finally said it would hold its fire.
The 90-minute exercise came nearly a month after North Korea responded to earlier maneuvers by shelling Yeonpyeong Island, killing two marines and two construction workers in its first attack targeting civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War. That clash sent tensions soaring between the two countries.
In an emergency meeting yesterday morning, United Nations diplomats meeting in New York failed to find any solution to the crisis.
North Korea called yesterday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because South Korea had changed its firing zones.
The Korean Central News Agency carried a statement that suggested that North Korea viewed the drills differently from the ones that provoked it last month because South Korean shells landed farther south of North Korea's shores.
North Korea claims the waters around Yeonpyeong as its territory and during last month's artillery exchange it accused South Korea of firing artillery into its waters; South Korea said it fired shells southward, not toward North Korea.
Yesterday, however, North Korea said it will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and United States bases.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said its artillery was fired in the same direction as during last month's maneuvers: toward waters southwest of the island, not toward North Korea.
"North Korea appeared to have issued this statement because it was afraid" of a full-blown war with South Korea, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said.
During the drills on Yeonpyeong, a tiny enclave of fishing communities and military bases about 11 kilometers from North Korean shores, marines fired about 1,500 artillery shells into the island's waters, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Seoul launched fighter jets, evacuated hundreds of people from its tense land border with North Korea and sent residents of front-line islands into underground bunkers in case of attack, but North Korea finally said it would hold its fire.
The 90-minute exercise came nearly a month after North Korea responded to earlier maneuvers by shelling Yeonpyeong Island, killing two marines and two construction workers in its first attack targeting civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War. That clash sent tensions soaring between the two countries.
In an emergency meeting yesterday morning, United Nations diplomats meeting in New York failed to find any solution to the crisis.
North Korea called yesterday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because South Korea had changed its firing zones.
The Korean Central News Agency carried a statement that suggested that North Korea viewed the drills differently from the ones that provoked it last month because South Korean shells landed farther south of North Korea's shores.
North Korea claims the waters around Yeonpyeong as its territory and during last month's artillery exchange it accused South Korea of firing artillery into its waters; South Korea said it fired shells southward, not toward North Korea.
Yesterday, however, North Korea said it will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and United States bases.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said its artillery was fired in the same direction as during last month's maneuvers: toward waters southwest of the island, not toward North Korea.
"North Korea appeared to have issued this statement because it was afraid" of a full-blown war with South Korea, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said.
During the drills on Yeonpyeong, a tiny enclave of fishing communities and military bases about 11 kilometers from North Korean shores, marines fired about 1,500 artillery shells into the island's waters, the Yonhap news agency reported.
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