South Korea rejected China’s call to resume six-party talks with North Korea today, as its navy began manoeuvres with US warships amid threats of a “merciless” response by Kim Jong Il’s regime.
“Emergency” discussions involving the Koreas, China, the US, Russia and Japan should be held next month in Beijing to address increasing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Wu Dawei, China’s top envoy for the negotiations, told reporters in Beijing today. The time isn’t right for such a meeting South Korean President Lee Myung Bak told visiting Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo today in Seoul, Yonhap News said.
North Korea “will deal a merciless military counter-attack at any provocative act of intruding into its territorial waters,” according to a Rodong newspaper commentary carried today by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). US and South Korean warships led by the aircraft carrier USS George Washington today began four days of drills in the region.
Residents of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island, where four people were killed and 20 wounded in a November 23 artillery bombardment by the North, were temporarily ordered to take refuge in bomb shelters today after more shelling was heard on the North Korean mainland. US Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US is trying to prevent tensions over last week’s attack on the disputed maritime border from escalating into a more significant confrontation.
“We’re very focused on restraint and not letting this thing get out of control,” Mullen told CNN in an interview scheduled for broadcast on Fareed Zakaria GPS today and posted on the network’s website. “Nobody wants this thing to turn into a conflict.”
The shelling of Yeonpyeong revived tensions that flared after an international inquiry concluded that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan in March and following North Korea’s claims of advances in its nuclear programme. North Korea said that, if true, reported civilian casualties in its artillery attack were “very regrettable”.
