South Korea says North summit possible if talks go well

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday held out the possibility of a leaders' summit with rival North Korea if planned inter-Korean dialogue goes well, saying he had high hopes for their first talks in months.

The two Koreas have agreed to discuss November's attack by the North on a southern island and an attack in March on a South Korean naval vessel which Seoul has blamed on the North, helping to ease tension on the peninsula and opening the way for the possible resumption of six-party aid-for-disarmament talks.

The two attacks killed 50 people.

Seoul has suggested preliminary military talks take place at the Panmunjom truce village on February 11. The talks are meant to set the agenda for a more senior meeting, possibly at ministerial level.

The South has also proposed separate political talks to gauge Pyongyangy's sincerity about denuclearisation, the key component of stalled aid-for-disarmament talks which the North walked out of two years ago.

The North has yet to respond to the proposal for bilateral nuclear talks.

"I don't deny it," Lee said when asked during a live television interview if progress at upcoming talks could possibly lead to a summit between the rival Koreas' leaders. "We can have a summit if needed."

Lee cut off a decade of unconditional aid to the North when he took office in 2008, angering Pyongyang, and demanded the isolated neighbour end its nuclear programmes if it wanted Seoul to get back to commercial exchange and giving aid.

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NKorea slams SKorea over defense ties with Japan

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea is criticizing South Korea for pushing to strengthen defense ties with Japan, calling the cooperation a dangerous plot to invade the North.

The North's government-run Uriminzokkiri website made the criticism Wednesday, two days after South Korea and Japan agreed to launch consultations on accords to share intelligence and provide each other's militaries with fuel, food and other materials.

The pacts, if signed, will be the two countries' first military agreement since Tokyo's brutal colonial rule of the Korean peninsula ended in 1945.

The North says the accords will help a U.S. plot to attack the North with its allies.

Seoul and Washington have repeatedly said they have no intention of invading North Korea.


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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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US attacks North Korea 'sacred war' threats

The US has denounced North Korea for threatening a "sacred war" against the South, whose military has been holding live-fire drills near the border.

The state department's Philip Crowley told the BBC there was no justification for Pyongyang's "belligerent words".

In a day of rising tension, Seoul and Pyongyang traded strong rhetoric, with the South warning of a "powerful response" to any attack from the North.

A month ago, the North fired on a Southern island, killing four people.

Thursday's speech by Armed Forces Minister Kim Yong-chun marks the strongest statement from Pyongyang since the attack on Yeonpyeong island.

Analysts believe the hard-line stance might be timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il taking control of the armed forces, which will be marked on Friday.
'Nuclear' threat

"We've heard this language before," said Mr Crowley in an interview with BBC's Newshour.

"Unfortunately sometimes that kind of language is followed by irresponsible actions, whether it's a missile test, a nuclear test or the shelling of South Korea, as occurred last month."

He added that the North would get no reward for its "provocative actions".

China, the North's only major ally, also issued a statement asking both parties on the peninsula to remain calm.

Pyongyang is frequently accused of sabre-rattling in order to strengthen its hand in negotiations with other countries over its nuclear ambitions.

But the North insists that it is the victim, and repeatedly accuses the South of preparing for war by holding military drills on the border.

Kim Yong-chun, quoted by state news agency KCNA, said the North was "getting fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice", and also threatened to use a "nuclear deterrent".

Despite possessing enough plutonium to create a bomb, the North is not thought to have succeeded in building a nuclear weapon.

International talks over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions halted in April 2009, when the North walked out and expelled UN nuclear inspectors.

The US has refused to resume the talks until North Korea recommits to its past promises to give up its nuclear-weapons programme.

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SKorea holds massive new drills after North attack

South Korea mobilized troops, tanks, helicopters and fighter jets for its largest-ever wintertime military drills Thursday, a show of force that comes a month after North Korea's deadly shelling of a front-line island.

The drills, set to begin Thursday afternoon at training grounds in mountainous Pocheon near the Koreas' heavily fortified border, signaled South Korea's determination to demonstrate and hone its military strength at the risk of further escalation with North Korea.

Jeeps wove their way up a winding road to the military base, passing armed soldiers and a ski resort where skiers and snowboarders were enjoying fresh snowfall. A thick fog hung over the area.

Exactly one month ago, routine South Korean live-fire drills from Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea triggered a shower of North Korean artillery that killed two marines and two construction workers. It was the first military attack on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

North Korea, which claims the waters around the South Korean-held island lying just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from its shores as its territory, accused the South of sparking the exchange by ignoring Pyongyang's warnings against staging the live-fire drills near their disputed maritime border.

Amid international concerns of all-out war on the tense Korean peninsula, South Korea has pushed ahead with military exercises over the past several weeks, including live-fire drills from Yeonpyeong Island and Monday's land-based exercises.

Thursday's drills will be the biggest-ever wintertime firing exercises staged by South Korea's army and air force, a military army statement said.

Forty-seven similar exercises have taken place this year but Thursday's maneuvers were scheduled in response to the North Korean attack, an army officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.

"We will thoroughly punish the enemy if it provokes us again as with the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island," Brig. Gen. Ju Eun-sik, chief of the South Korean army's 1st Armored Brigade, said in a statement Wednesday.

There was no immediate response from North Korea, which has shown restraint in recent days.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950s conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

The military tension over the past month has been the worst in more than a decade, and comes on the heels of the March sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul blames on Pyongyang, but which North Korea denies attacking. Forty-six sailors died in that incident.

Thursday's air force and army drills will involve 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S attack helicopters and K-9 self-propelled guns at military training grounds in Pocheon, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) north of Seoul and about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the North Korean border.

The White House dismissed concerns that the new drills would escalate tensions.

"I think exercises that have been announced well in advance, that are transparent, that are defensive in nature, should in no way engender a response from the North Koreans," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday in Washington.

South Korea's navy also was conducting annual firing and anti-submarine exercises off the east coast.

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China Criticizes Joint Military Drills as Obstacle to Easing Korea Tension

China criticized planned military exercises by more than 40,000 Japanese and U.S. troops as an obstacle to easing tensions on the Korean peninsula, and reiterated its call for increased diplomatic efforts.

“Brandishing of force cannot solve the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing in Beijing today. “Some are playing with knives and guns while China is criticized for calling for dialogue, is that fair?”

The maneuvers are the latest show of deterrence following North Korea’s Nov. 23 shelling of a South Korean island that killed four people. Japan and the U.S. joined South Korea in condemning the attack, rejecting China’s call for talks and urging the government in Beijing to rein in its ally.

South Korea will send military observers to the drills for the first time, in a signal that North Korea’s provocations are tightening U.S. military and political alliances in the region.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said South Korea’s participation was “an important point from the perspective of promoting cooperation among the three countries.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host Japan’s Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and South Korean counterpart Kim Sung Hwan on Dec. 6 to discuss regional security.

The week-long exercise beginning tomorrow has no link to any “existing or perceived political or geographical situation, nor is it directed at any nation,” U.S. Lt. Colonel Kenneth Hoffman, an Air Force spokesman, said in an e-mailed message.

George Washington

Fresh from maneuvers in the Yellow Sea with South Korea’s navy, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington will join a force of about 400 aircraft and 60 warships. Drills will include responding to ballistic missile attacks on Pacific islands, the Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces said in a statement.

China’s ties with North Korea “have witnessed significant progress this year,” Wu Bangguo, a member of the standing committee of China’s Politburo, said yesterday, according to a statement on the website of the Communist Party. Wu pledged to strengthen those links in his third meeting this year with Choe Tae Bok, a key aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

China has “much influence and therefore much responsibility,” Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a forum of the Center for American Progress in Washington yesterday. “We need China to step up.”

Stalled Negotiations

Chinese opposition has stalled United Nations Security Council negotiations condemning the shelling and North Korea’s expanding nuclear program.

Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, which helps carry out the country’s policy toward North Korea, yesterday met Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg in Washington, Xinhua News Agency reported.

North Korea last week confirmed it has a uranium-enrichment facility with thousands of centrifuges, which it said was intended for civilian use. The country is under UN sanctions because of previous atomic tests and concerns it is developing nuclear weapons.

South Korean National Intelligence Director Won Sei-hoon yesterday told lawmakers that North Korea may be planning another attack, Yonhap News reported.

Artillery Drills

South Korea’s military may carry out further artillery drills next week similar to those that sparked the North Korean shelling, according to Yonhap News, which cited government officials it didn’t identify. An official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and another at the Defense Ministry said today that no decision has been made. Both requested anonymity, citing government policy.

The North said the shelling was a response to “military provocation” after the South fired into waters that it claims as its own. Two soldiers and two civilians died in the barrage, which shattered the windows in a school and torched houses in the fishing community and military base.

North Korea’s state-run news service said the government urged the South to call off exercises in the area and warned of a military response to infringement of its “inviolable territorial” waters. The North doesn’t recognize the maritime border laid out after the 1950-53 Korean War.

China on Nov. 28 proposed “emergency consultations” with negotiators from the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the U.S. to defuse tensions. Negotiations among the six countries aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear program have been stalled since April 2009.

“The talks we’re proposing aren’t a formal meeting, so this shouldn’t be difficult for anyone,” Yu said, adding that Russia supported the proposal. “Only when dialogue begins can there be the possibility of solving problems.”

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Russia Backs China’s Call for Six-Party Talks on North Korea

Russia supports China’s proposal to hold six-nation talks on military tensions stemming from North Korea’s Nov. 23 artillery attack on a South Korean island, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said.

“We think that if everybody could come to those talks, they could be useful,” Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said in an interview today. “We sort of view this initiative as a positive one.”

China proposed on Nov. 28 that “emergency” talks to address the increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula be held early next month in Beijing. They would involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and the U.S., a group that met several times, starting in 2003, to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program until the government in Pyongyang pulled out of the talks in April 2009.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea haven’t agreed to China’s proposal, saying they want to see more concrete action by North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program before restarting the talks.

Japan’s bid to bring the issue to the UN Security Council has run into resistance from China.

“We are trying our best,” Ambassador Tsuneo Nishida of Japan told reporters at the UN. “We have been really trying to form a consensus in the Security Council. You have noticed that the Security Council has not yet been in a position to do that.”

The U.S. and Japan, which has a seat on the Security Council until Dec. 31, have been holding bilateral talks with China, Russia and other panel members. The U.S. and Japan haven’t formally proposed action by the Security Council.

Russian Suggestion

Churkin suggested that Russia also would be open to Security Council involvement in the issue.

“It could be discussed in the Security Council,” Churkin said. “No one has brought it up.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed similar willingness to back a Security Council position on the artillery attack during a Nov. 25 news conference in Moscow.

“I hope that soon the Security Council will express its opinion, which will help calm the situation,” Lavrov said, according to a transcript provided by the Foreign Ministry.

China, while not openly rejecting the call for Security Council involvement, is pushing hard for the six-party format.

Yang Tao, political director of China’s mission to the UN, called the six-party talks “one of the most useful platforms” and said it had “some success” dealing with the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program.

“It is very important for this platform to play its dual role,” Yang said in an interview.

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China 'opposes force' in Korean Peninsula dispute, Premier Wen Jiabao says

WEN Jiabao has said China "opposes any threat of force" on the Korean Peninsula and is committed to maintaining peace in the wake of North Korea's deadly artillery attack. The statement comes as South Korea beefs up its military presence on five islands bordering the North.

“The current situation we are facing is severe and complicated,” the Chinese Premier was quoted as saying during a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in reports carried in state-run Chinese news agencies today. “All parties concerned should maintain an utmost restraint. The international community should do more to ease the ongoing tension.”

The rhetoric falls short of the level of involvement the rest of the world wants to see from Beijing. The Chinese government is under pressure to help implement sanctions against North Korea, reduce its economic assistance to the rogue state and convince it to stop its attacks on the South and its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said high-level talks between China and the US would probably occur within the next few days and the American government expected Beijing to use its influence to restrain its ally. “China does have influence with North Korea and we hope and expect that they use that influence first to reduce tensions that have arisen as a result of North Korean provocations” and encourage the North to take affirmative steps to denuclearise, he said.

CNN reported yesterday that Barack Obama was expected to hold phone discussions with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in the next few days. The crisis erupted on Tuesday when the North launched an artillery barrage on the South Korean-controlled Yeonpyeong Island as a South Korean naval drill was taking place in nearby waters. Residents clambered into shelters during the hour-long attack, which damaged houses and a military base and left two South Korean marines dead and two civilians dead.

South Korea's presidential palace announced today it would will strengthen its military presence. The government ``has decided to sharply increase military forces, including ground troops, on the five islands in the Yellow Sea and allocate more of its budget toward dealing with North Korea's asymmetrical threats,'' said senior public affairs secretary Hong Sang-Pyo. He said the military - which has faced media criticism for an allegedly weak response to Tuesday's shelling -- would also change its rules of engagement.

Mr Hong described existing rules as ``rather passive'' and focused on stopping a conflict escalating. The new rules would ``change the paradigm'', Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying without elaborating. Nations including Australia, the US and Japan have urged China to help curb Pyongyang's attacks on the South as a leading Korea scholar warned of the risk of a catastrophic war.

Australia's National Security Committee met yesterday on the crisis and Julia Gillard said the government was deeply concerned by the attack on an ally. The US and South Korea will stage joint war games from Sunday in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula and will involve the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington.

The drills, which the US said were planned before this week’s attacks, are a more measured response than the retaliatory attack Seoul initially threatened, but given South Korean naval exercises were the trigger for the North's barrage, the exercises will ensure tension persists on the Korean Peninsula.

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North Korean attack on South Korean island leaves U.S. with few good options

North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island Tuesday, coupled with its choreographed rollout of a new nuclear program, has presented the United States with a massive strategic challenge in one of the most dangerous corners of the world.

The 50-minute barrage on the island of Yeonpyeong - which killed two South Korean marines, wounded at least 19 other people and set buildings and forests ablaze - marked the first time in years that North Korea has trained the firepower of its 1.1 million-strong military on South Korea's civilian population. It prompted a withering round of return fire from South Korean batteries, the scrambling of the South's air force and concerns that the firefight could spiral into all-out war.

Despite North Korean claims that the South fired the first shots during a round of military exercises, U.S. officials said the barrage appeared to have been unprovoked and premeditated.

They noted that the North began firing artillery four hours after the South's guns had fallen silent. Administration sources also said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his third son, the heir apparent Kim Jong Eun, visited troops over the weekend in the region where the barrage originated - apparently as a kind of pep rally.

Indeed, Tuesday's attack on the island off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula appears to have been just as scripted as the nuclear revelations, which Pyongyang has dribbled out in phases over the past month, culminating with the disclosure that it has a uranium-enrichment program. That development had already significantly complicated U.S.-led efforts to push North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons; in addition to its production of plutonium, the North now has a second way to make a bomb.

The United States, which is obligated by a treaty to defend the South, now faces few good options with regard to the North.

If it declines to hold talks with North Korea unless the government there agrees to give up its nuclear weapons - part of the Obama administration's policy of "strategic patience" - Pyongyang could escalate with more artillery barrages or with an attack on a South Korean warship, similar to the one it is accused of launching in March. The government could also conduct a third nuclear test, long rumored to be in the offing, or continue to hawk its nuclear-weapons technology abroad.

On the other hand, if the Obama administration is pulled into talks with the North Koreans, it won't be able to escape the appearance that it is caving in the face of pressure. And even if talks do resume, there is no guarantee that North Korea won't continue the provocations and attacks.

"We've had an underlying philosophy of not rewarding bad behavior with concessions," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "And that philosophy will continue to underline our next steps."

Still, without some form of renewed engagement, analysts such as Siegfried Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who was shown North Korea's uranium- enrichment program on Nov. 12, worry that North Korea will simply continue along its confrontational path. "You have to address the fundamentals of North Korean security," Hecker said.


For now the Obama administration's primary concern is the security of the South - and ensuring that the situation does not spin out of control.

President Obama learned of the attack at 3:55 a.m., according to a spokesman. U.S. Army Gen. Walter L. Sharp, commander of United Nations forces on the peninsula and the 28,000 American troops stationed there, was in constant touch with his South Korean counterparts after the attack.

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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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