S Korea defies North threat
Seoul stages live-fire artillery drills
Defying North Korean threats of violent retaliation and “brutal consequences beyond imagination,” South Korea on Monday staged live-fire artillery drills on an island shelled last month by the North.
The immediate response from Pyongyang was surprisingly muted, however. A statement from the North’s official news agency on Monday night said it was “not worth reacting” to the exercise.
“Maybe we had a little impact,” said Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who as an unofficial American envoy was in Pyongyang when the drills ended. Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations, said earlier the North had offered concessions on its nuclear programme, including a resumption of visits by UN inspectors.
The drills, which included F-15K fighter-bombers overhead, came after the UN Security Council failed to agree on a measure calling for moderation and restraint by the two Koreas. Seoul also rejected calls by China and Russia to cancel the exercise.
The drills, in which shells were fired into waters claimed by both Koreas, escalates what is already an ominous standoff that American military officials have warned could spiral out of control. South Korea insisted that the drill was routine and that it had the sovereign right to conduct such exercises, even at a time of such heightened tensions.
A spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said marine artillery units on Yeonpyeong Island began firing on Monday at 2:30 pm and ended at 4:04 pm.
The South Korean island, which sits just eight miles off the North Korean coast, was the site of last month’s artillery barrage by the North that killed two marines and two civilians.
Earlier on Monday, South Korean television showed footage of the few remaining residents of the island’s fishing community moving into bomb shelters and trying on gas masks as the mainland also braced itself for possible North Korean retaliation.
Gen Walter L Sharp, the commander of American forces in South Korea, and Kathleen Stephens, the American ambassador to Seoul, went on Sunday to the Blue House, the presidential offices and residence. The embassy declined to comment on Monday about the Blue House visit or the drill.
“The US side said it supports South Korea’s military training plan irrespective of North Korea’s response, and that it will stay with us whatever happens,” said Kim Hee-jung, a spokeswoman for South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
At the Security Council meeting in New York, the American ambassador to the UN, Susan E Rice, defended Seoul, saying it was “important to recognise that that there is nothing unusual about these planned drills.”
“They are exclusively defensive in nature, and they have been regularly conducted for years,” she said.
