[ProomoSam]

May 28, 2010

KOREAN TENSIONS
China under pressure
All eyes are on Beijing's stand on crisis as PM Wen visits Seoul today

By Grace Ng, China Correspondent



Salvage team members and soldiers watch as they move a part of the sunken naval vessel closer to the shore by use of a giant crane off Baengyeongdo near the maritime border with North Korea. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING - CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao arrives in Seoul today for a visit amid questions on whether Beijing will finally take a stand on North Korea's involvement in the sinking of a South Korean warship. While senior United States officials yesterday reportedly said Beijing has indicated it is prepared to hold Pyongyang responsible for the March 26 torpedo attack, the Chinese side has remained non-committal so far.

When Mr Wen meets South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, he is likely to comfort China's close trading partner with more condolences over the death of 46 sailors in the sinking of the corvette Cheonan. An international investigation last week concluded that Pyongyang was the culprit. In public, Mr Wen is also likely to repeat Beijing's standard response about its position on the crisis: that China does not have first-hand information, but is looking at the information from all sides in a prudent manner.

But behind closed doors at a weekend trilateral summit, where Seoul and Tokyo will likely clamour for Beijing to join them in hauling Pyongyang to the United Nations Security Council, Mr Wen may be more forthcoming about China's diplomatic dilemma. 'Premier Wen will speak in more detailed, concrete terms... about China's reluctance to take sides and why,' said Mr Zhang Liangui, an expert on China-North Korea issues at the Central Party School which trains communist party cadres.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
graceng@sph.com.sg
Additional reporting by Lina Miao

[BashBeissedat]

South Korean Army soldiers salute in front of portraits of the deceased sailors from the sunken South Korean naval ship Cheonan during a memorial service at Seoul City Hall Plaza in South, South Korea. -- PHOTO: AP

[BashBeissedat]

South Korean marines launch a rubber boat to offer flowers to the deceased sailors from the sunken South Korean naval vessel Cheonan during a memorial service on Baengnyeondo island, near the maritime border with North Korea, northwest of Seoul. South Korea on Thursday mourned the loss of 46 sailors who died when a Navy ship sank after a blast widely believed to have been the result of a North Korean torpedo. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

[BashBeissedat]

May 30, 2010
Anti-Seoul rally draws 100k

SEOUL - A RALLY in Pyongyang on Sunday accusing South Korea of heightening cross-border tensions over the sinking of one of its warships drew 100,000 people, according to North Korean state media. The demonstration was held at Kim Il-Sung Square, named after the North Korea's founder and the current ruler's father, according to the state broadcasting network monitored by the South's Yonhap news agency. Slogans painted on the stage at the rally denounced South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak as a traitor, it said.

Addressing the rally, Choe Yong-Rim, chief secretary of the city's party committee, urged citizens to brace themselves for an attack from South Korea and its ally the US, saying the peninsula was on the brink of war, it said. He also rebutted Seoul's allegation that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives, Yonhap said. International investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the warship. The North has denied involvement, and responded to the South's reprisals with threats of war. -- AFP

[ImmitsRom]

SKorea steps up efforts to haul NKorea to UN
Posted: 01 June 2010 1202 hrs
Photos 1 of 1
The salvaged bow of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, whcih sunk near the North Korean border on Mar 26.


SEOUL : South Korea Tuesday stepped up its campaign to hold North Korea responsible at the UN Security Council for sinking a warship, briefing visiting Russian experts and sending an envoy to the United States. A team of Russian naval experts arrived Monday to review the findings of a multinational investigation team, which concluded last month that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the South Korean ship with the loss of 46 lives.

The Russians, including experts on torpedoes and submarines, will stay in South Korea until June 7 to debrief investigators, inspect the wreckage and visit the site of the sinking, defence and foreign ministry officials said. "Russia's direct trust in our investigation results will make this case clear, and it's part of our stepped-up effort to muster international support," one official told AFP.

South Korea has announced a series of reprisals including cutting off trade with its communist neighbour. The hardline state furiously denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war, sending regional tensions sharply higher. The South, with US and Japanese support, will ask the Security Council to sanction -- or at least to censure -- the North for the sinking, one of the worst military attacks since the 1950-53 war.

Seoul needs support from veto-wielding Council members, including Russia and China, which have traditionally been close to Pyongyang. The foreign ministry in Moscow has said it needs "100 percent proof" of the North's involvement. Seoul has also asked China to send its own experts but Beijing has not responded, according to local media, some of which said the offer had been rejected.

At a three-way weekend summit, China's Premier Wen Jiabao resisted pressure from the Japanese and South Korean leaders to publicly support the UN move or to condemn the North. Wen instead called for efforts to ease regional tensions. Despite China's unclear stance, South Korea continued its campaign by sending Second Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-Woo, in charge of UN affairs, to the United States Monday for discussions with US officials.

With the US government reviewing how to step up its own actions against North Korea, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said restricting cash flows to the North was an effective punishment. "If the cash inflow into North Korea is restricted, I think it will lower the possibility of nuclear weapons development and deter belligerent behaviour," he said in a BBC interview aired early Tuesday. South Korea estimates that its own reprisals will cost the cash-strapped North between 260-300 million dollars a year.

President Lee Myung-Bak instructed his cabinet Tuesday to draw up a long-term strategy for reunification of the peninsula despite the tensions over the Cheonan corvette's sinking. "National security has emerged as an important task since the Cheonan incident," Lee told them. "With regard to security, people usually think of confrontation. Fundamentally, however, we should draw up a strategy on security bearing reunification in mind."

[minowz]

Jun 6, 2010
N.Korea poses 'dilemma'

SINGAPORE - DIPLOMATIC efforts to punish North Korea for sinking a South Korean warship may have little effect on a regime that 'doesn't care' about the outside world or its own people, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the BBC on Sunday. North Korea's defiant stance posed a 'dilemma' for world powers struggling to find effective measures against Pyongyang short of military action, Mr Gates said, according to a transcript of his interview. Mr Gates said that 'as long as the regime doesn't care what the outside world thinks of it, as long as it doesn't care about the well-being of its people, there's not a lot you can do about it, to be quite frank, unless you're willing at some point to use military force.

'And nobody wants to do that.' There was no desire to trigger the collapse of the North or 'to see another war on the peninsula,' he said. 'So how do you gain purchase with a regime that doesn't seem to care what happens to it?' Citing the unpredictable nature of the regime, Mr Gates said the North's motives in the alleged sinking of the South Korean ship remained unclear and raised the possibility of yet more 'provocations.' 'And one has to wonder what they were thinking and whether there are other provocations to come,' he said. Mr Gates was speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore where he pledged full support to Seoul and called for international action to hold Pyongyang to account for the alleged torpedo attack on the Cheonan that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

But in the BBC interview, he sounded pessimistic about the prospects for pressuring the North as he described the communist regime's pattern of behavior. He said North Korea often surprised its closest ally, China, with aggressive acts, and that Beijing's influence over the North should not overstated. 'There's no doubt in my mind that China has perhaps the greatest influence of any outside power on North Korea. But I think that's far from control,' he said. 'And the frequency with which the North Korean regime surprises the Chinese I think illustrates that.' Mr Gates' grim description of the challenges facing efforts to hold North Korea accountable came after Seoul appealed to the UN Security Security to take up the crisis. -- AFP

[77Dinaartickire]

Russian probe undercuts Cheonan sinking theory

Vladimir Radyuhin var addthis_pub = "thehindu"; T+ · T-

Russian experts who carried out a probe into the South Korean warship sinking refused to put the blame on North Korea, military sources said on Tuesday.

A team of four submarine and torpedo experts from the Russian Navy returned to Moscow on Monday after making an independent assessment of the March 26 sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan, in which 46 sailors were killed. A Russian Navy source said the experts had not found convincing evidence of North Korea's involvement.

“After examining the available evidence and the ship wreckage Russian experts came to the conclusion that a number of arguments produced by the international investigation in favour of the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] involvement in the corvette sinking were not weighty enough,” a Russian Navy source told the Interfax-AVN news wire on Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

Russia's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov said only that the Russian Foreign Ministry would make an official statement on the issue after the experts prepared their report. “It is too early to make a definitive conclusion on the causes of the tragedy,” he was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Immediately after the incident Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev urged restraint in order to “avoid the further escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula”.

The Kremlin said Mr. Medvedev had accepted Seoul's invitation to send a team of experts to South Korea because he believed “it is of the utmost importance to establish the true cause of the ship's sinking and determine exactly who holds personal responsibility.” A leading Russian expert on Korea suggested that the ship had been probably hit by friendly fire. “I think it was a tragic accident during war games that cynical politicians are trying to exploit to maximum advantage,” said Dr. Konstantin Asmolov of the Korea Centre at the Institute of the Far East.

[77Dinaartickire]

N.Korea deploys 50,000 soldiers to border: report

North Korea has completed deployment of about 50,000 special forces along the border with South Korea, a report said Wednesday, amid high tensions over the sinking of a Seoul warship.

An armed North Korean soldier is seen gesturing at China Yalu River frontier. The hardline communist state has completed deployment of about 50,000 special forces along the border with South Korea, a report has said, amid high tensions over the sinking of a Seoul warship.

The deployment began two or three years ago and seven 7,000-strong divisions are now in place, an unidentified senior government official told Yonhap news agency. "The threat that North Korea may infiltrate special forces for limited warfare has become real," the agency quoted a separate senior defence ministry official as saying.

The defence ministry refused to confirm the Yonhap report, but President Lee Myung-Bak discussed the North's special warfare capabilities at an unprecedented meeting Tuesday with 150 top officers from all armed services. At the meeting, Lee hinted strongly that the North was involved in the sinking of a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives near the disputed sea border on March 26.

Suspicions are growing that the 1,200-tonne ship was hit by a torpedo from the communist state, which has denied involvement. Lee said the South must be better prepared to tackle "asymmetric" military threats including special warfare units.

A defence ministry report in 2008 said the North -- learning lessons from the Iraq war -- had strengthened its special warfare capability by augmenting light infantry units and enhancing their street warfare, night-time and mountaineering training. The North has about 180,000 special forces, it said, adding they would be used for "multifarious types of attacks and mixed warfare" against the South.