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North and South Korea trade threats, accusations
REUTERS in Seoul
Updated at 1.15pm: Overnight, the North Korean navy said the South had sent two warships across a disputed maritime border off the North Korean coast not far from where the two navies battled on June 29 in the worst such clash in three years. ''We warn that the infiltration of the combat warships is a dangerous act which may spark a new armed clash,'' the North Korean navy said in statement published late on Sunday by the North's official KCNA news agency. South Korea denied the North Korean accusation and said the North would pay a high price if it ventured into the South's territorial waters again. ''What the North said is totally fabricated and groundless,'' the South Korean navy said in a statement. It said there had been a routine South Korean naval exercise on Sunday but the warships stayed well inside South Korean waters, below a disputed maritime border line. The June 29 clash hardened South Korean public opinion against North Korea when North-South ties were in stalemate and just as South Korea was on a high from co-hosting the soccer World Cup. The latest survey of 1,011 people by the Chosun Ilbo daily newspaper showed 70 per cent believed the North attacked the South's navy in a premeditated incident. Some 60 per cent thought President Kim Dae-jung's ''Sunshine Policy'' of engaging the North should continue but with stiffer security. Opposition politicians, mindful of crucial parliamentary by-elections next month and a presidential election at the end of the year, have called for a tougher line, too. Presidential spokeswoman Park Sun-sook defended Kim Dae-jung's policy on Monday against criticism that Seoul had let its guard down in pursuit of reconciliation with North Korea. ''The government's North Korea policy, the Sunshine policy, is based on national strength, defence and especially confidence in our military,'' she told a news conference. The naval battle prompted South Korea's ally the United States to put on hold plans to send a high-level envoy to North Korea to discuss resuming dialogue. South Korea also tightened its rules of engagement, making it easier for a commander to react on the spot but correspondingly raising the risk of sparking an incident. On Monday, the South Korean navy warned the North not to enter its waters and said the North would be taught a lesson and bear responsibility for any consequences. On Sunday, the South Korean Defence Ministry outlined its investigation into the June 29 clash, in which four South Korean sailors were killed and 19 wounded. One sailor is missing. An unknown number of North Korean sailors died. The ministry said the North had repeatedly probed the South's defences in the weeks leading up to the clash. ''The surprise attack initiated by the North Korean military was deliberate and planned in detail in advance,'' Rear Admiral Bae Sang-gi told a news conference in Seoul. He said the tactic appeared to have been to draw the most vulnerable vessel away from the rest and then pick it off. The North has blamed the South for starting the fighting. Mr Bae, who led the investigation, added: ''More analysis is needed to determine where the orders originated'' in the North. He did not address speculation in South Korea the attack was communist North Korea's revenge for a similar battle in the same waters in June 1999 that is believed to have killed dozens of North Korean sailors. Some South Korean newspapers criticised the navy's response to the North Korean attack, saying it had blundered tactically and been slow off the mark. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
