ID :
200593
Thu, 08/11/2011 - 09:34
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/200593
The shortlink copeid
S. Korea disregards N. Korea's denial of border shelling
(ATTN: ADDS background, U.S. official's remarks in paras 10-13, photo, analyst's comments, details in last 5 paras)
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military on Thursday flatly dismissed North Korea's claim that the South mistook a blasting noise from construction work for artillery fire near their tense maritime border a day earlier.
The South's military returned warning shots on Wednesday after North Korean artillery shells landed in waters near the Yellow Sea border. Hours later in the day, the North fired two more artillery rounds into waters, prompting the South to fire back in retaliation.
The North's latest shelling, which South Korean military officials say appeared to stem from artillery drills on waters near the sea border, rattled nerves along the border because it came just nine months after Pyongyang attacked nearby Yeonpyeong Island with an artillery barrage, killing two civilians and two Marines.
However, North Korea denied shelling near the Yellow Sea border early Thursday, saying "normal blasting" from the "brisk construction of a gigantic object" in the North's area near the border caused the South's military to return fire.
"Frightened by this, the South Korea military warmongers spread misinformation that the army of the DPRK (North Korea) perpetrated a shelling 'provocation,'" the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
The North repeated the same claim in its telephone message sent to the South on Thursday morning.
An official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) quickly dismissed the North's denial as "out of the question."
"We confirmed that three out of the five North Korean shells fell near the Northern Limit Line (NLL)" that serves as a de facto border in the area, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
"It's not worth commenting on North Korea's false, unilateral argument," the official said.
Wednesday's incident came less than two weeks after U.S. and North Korean officials held rare discussions in New York as part of diplomatic efforts to resume the long-stalled six-nation talks on ending the North's nuclear programs.
That followed a surprise meeting between top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Indonesia. The six-party talks, also involving China, Russia and Japan, have been stalled for more than two years.
In Washington on Wednesday, the U.S. called for North Korea to show "restraint" and indicated that Washington would not let the latest shelling affect the fresh momentum of the talks.
"This incident is now over and we now need to move back to the main business at hand, which is for North Korea to show us, to show South Korea, to show its other partners that it's truly committed to the kind of goals that we have together in terms of denuclearization," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
Tension remains high along the poorly defined border, the scene of a series of bloody naval clashes between the two Koreas. North Korea has never recognized the NLL, demanding that it be re-drawn further south.
South Korean military officials said the North Korean shots appeared to have come from Yongmae Island, about 11 kilometers north of the NLL and some 20km northeast of Yeonpyeong Island. The South's warnings shots were launched from Yeonpyeong.
The NLL, which U.N. forces drew unilaterally at the end of the Korean War, has served as the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas. They still remain technically in a state of war since the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In addition to the North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong last November, Pyongyang sank a South Korean warship near the sea border in March last year, killing 46 sailors. The two attacks chilled inter-Korean relations to the lowest level in years.
Some analysts believe that the latest shelling was in part aimed at pressuring South Korea to change its get-tough policy on the North, including a dispute over the stalled joint tourism project to the North's Mount Kumgang.
"North Korea has recently raised the issue of Mount Kumgang in the east and appears to raise the issue of NLL in the west," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Wednesday's shelling was "seen as an indirect pressure against South Korea in bilateral discussions on Mount Kumgang and humanitarian issues," Yang said.
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military on Thursday flatly dismissed North Korea's claim that the South mistook a blasting noise from construction work for artillery fire near their tense maritime border a day earlier.
The South's military returned warning shots on Wednesday after North Korean artillery shells landed in waters near the Yellow Sea border. Hours later in the day, the North fired two more artillery rounds into waters, prompting the South to fire back in retaliation.
The North's latest shelling, which South Korean military officials say appeared to stem from artillery drills on waters near the sea border, rattled nerves along the border because it came just nine months after Pyongyang attacked nearby Yeonpyeong Island with an artillery barrage, killing two civilians and two Marines.
However, North Korea denied shelling near the Yellow Sea border early Thursday, saying "normal blasting" from the "brisk construction of a gigantic object" in the North's area near the border caused the South's military to return fire.
"Frightened by this, the South Korea military warmongers spread misinformation that the army of the DPRK (North Korea) perpetrated a shelling 'provocation,'" the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
The North repeated the same claim in its telephone message sent to the South on Thursday morning.
An official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) quickly dismissed the North's denial as "out of the question."
"We confirmed that three out of the five North Korean shells fell near the Northern Limit Line (NLL)" that serves as a de facto border in the area, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
"It's not worth commenting on North Korea's false, unilateral argument," the official said.
Wednesday's incident came less than two weeks after U.S. and North Korean officials held rare discussions in New York as part of diplomatic efforts to resume the long-stalled six-nation talks on ending the North's nuclear programs.
That followed a surprise meeting between top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Indonesia. The six-party talks, also involving China, Russia and Japan, have been stalled for more than two years.
In Washington on Wednesday, the U.S. called for North Korea to show "restraint" and indicated that Washington would not let the latest shelling affect the fresh momentum of the talks.
"This incident is now over and we now need to move back to the main business at hand, which is for North Korea to show us, to show South Korea, to show its other partners that it's truly committed to the kind of goals that we have together in terms of denuclearization," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
Tension remains high along the poorly defined border, the scene of a series of bloody naval clashes between the two Koreas. North Korea has never recognized the NLL, demanding that it be re-drawn further south.
South Korean military officials said the North Korean shots appeared to have come from Yongmae Island, about 11 kilometers north of the NLL and some 20km northeast of Yeonpyeong Island. The South's warnings shots were launched from Yeonpyeong.
The NLL, which U.N. forces drew unilaterally at the end of the Korean War, has served as the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas. They still remain technically in a state of war since the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
In addition to the North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong last November, Pyongyang sank a South Korean warship near the sea border in March last year, killing 46 sailors. The two attacks chilled inter-Korean relations to the lowest level in years.
Some analysts believe that the latest shelling was in part aimed at pressuring South Korea to change its get-tough policy on the North, including a dispute over the stalled joint tourism project to the North's Mount Kumgang.
"North Korea has recently raised the issue of Mount Kumgang in the east and appears to raise the issue of NLL in the west," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Wednesday's shelling was "seen as an indirect pressure against South Korea in bilateral discussions on Mount Kumgang and humanitarian issues," Yang said.
