SKorea vows retaliation if North attacks again

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's president vowed a relentless retaliation against North Korea if provoked again, saying Monday he is not afraid of a war with the communist North.

The two Koreas have ramped up their rhetoric since North Korea shelled front-line Yeonpyeong Island near the tense western sea border last month, killing four South Koreans. Both sides accuse each other of provoking first.

On Monday, President Lee Myung-bak used much of his regular address to vow to get tougher with any new provocation by North Korea.

"We have now been awakened to the realization that war can be prevented and peace assured only when such provocations are met with a strong response," Lee said. "Fear of war is never helpful in preventing war."

He said South Korea's military "must respond relentlessly when they come under attack."

South Korea has staged a series of military drills — including one on Yeonpyeong Island on Dec. 20 — in a show of force against the North. The South was to begin routine naval firing exercises starting Monday but not on Yeonpyeong and other border islands, according to the Defense Ministry.

North Korea, for its part, has also kept up rhetoric around last Friday's 19th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as the North's supreme military commander. Kim's military chief threatened last week to launch a "sacred" nuclear war against the South.

On Friday, North Korean soldiers appeared on a state TV program and bragged of participating in the artillery barrage on Yeonpyeong — the country's first attacks on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950s conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. In recent years, several bloody naval skirmishes occurred near their disputed western sea border — drawn by the U.N. at the close of the Korean War.

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Obama Warns North Korea in Speech

SEOUL, South Korea — In a Veterans Day speech at a United States Army base in central Seoul, President Obama said Thursday that America remains committed to defending South Korea, and warned North Korea that it faces continued isolation unless it fulfills its commitments to give up nuclear weapons.

While Mr. Obama is in South Korea for a Group of 20 meeting on fixing the stricken global economy, relations with North Korea are also expected to be on the agenda, particularly in talks with the host nation. The United States and its allies are seeking ways to get North Korea to return to six-party talks aimed at convincing the North to drop its weapons program.

Mr. Obama will meet later Thursday with the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, whose country’s relations with the North have become even more tense since the sinking in March of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, apparently by a North Korean torpedo.

There are signs that there could be movement afoot as to the approach of the United States and its allies toward the reclusive regime of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il. Earlier this week, Mr. Lee dropped demands that the North apologize for the Cheonan’s sinking as a precondition of talks.

In a strongly worded statement made before thousands of soldiers and Marines gathered on a chilly morning, Mr. Obama called North Korea a starving nation whose economic failures were visible even from space, where at night “the brilliant lights of Seoul” can be seen giving way “to the utter darkness of the North.”

“But there is another path available to North Korea,” Mr. Obama said. “If they choose to fulfill their international obligations and commitments to the international community, they will have the chance to offer their people lives of growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty.”

During the speech, Mr. Obama also honored the 37,000 Americans and far larger number of South Koreans who died fighting the North during the 1950-53 Korean War. He also led the audience in a standing ovation for 62 veterans of that war who attended the speech at the Yongsan base, in the center of this city of gleaming skyscrapers and modern highways.

“Gentlemen, we are honored by your presence,” Mr. Obama said. “We are grateful for your service. And the world is better off because of what you did here.”


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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/world/asia/11korea.html