Intl community should stop artificial Korean conflict - view.

MOSCOW, May 27 (Itar-Tass) - The distinctive feature of the current
crisis on the Korean peninsula, the most acute in the past two decades, is
its "absolute artificiality, hyped by the South Korean administration," a
political scientist told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
"It was Seoul that made "casus belli" - a formal pretext for declaring
a war - out of "the sad and tragic, but rather ordinary incident between
the armed forces of North Korea and South Korea," said Georgy Toloraya,
director of research programs at the center for contemporary Korean
studies under the Institute of World Economy and International Relations,
the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN).
"The sinking of a vessel by a North Korean submarine has not been
proven, and even if it has been the case, it is just one of the episodes
in the years of confrontation in a disputed Yellow Sea area," he said.
The expert reminded that in November 2009, a South Korean ship sank a
North Korean vessel, obviously causing numerous fatalities. At that time,
this incident did not attract international attention, because South Korea
spread the version that the North Korean vessel had violated the border.
"Perhaps the North Korean actions are a sort of response to that
episode," Toloraya suggested, noting that there is no precise information
about the location of the South Korean corvette and the North Korean
submarine at the moment of the latest incident.
"The incident is still far from warranting any explicit conclusions;
nevertheless, the South Korean administration launched a sweeping
propaganda campaign without delay and is raising the issue at a session of
the UN Security Council. It is an orchestrated action, which the Americans
were rather reluctant to support at the beginning. The obvious purpose of
this action is political. It aims to isolate North Korea, secure new
sanctions with the view of weakening the Pyongyang regime and carry on
toward replacing this regime.
"The tensions that appeared between the two sides are certainly
alarming, but logically, they should not lead to a military conflict which
would be a follow-up of politics by other means. I believe there is no
danger so far. But an accident, such as a shootout, is possible, and it
can escalate to a full-blown conflict.
"Of course, nobody needs this escalation, and the international
community should make everything to placate both parties and take the
appropriate measures to have them return to talks. The international
community has to send a clear signal to both Pyongyang and Seoul that
confrontation is inadmissible and that it would not be allowed, and that
both sides would be subject to sanctions," the Russian political scientist
underlined.