South Korea yesterday urged the UN Security Council to send a firm message to North Korea over the sinking of a warship, but declined to comment on media reports that China was blocking such a move.
“The international community should send a firm and clear message to North Korea,” foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told a briefing.
Kim refused to comment on reports that China objects to identifying its ally the North as the culprit, but admitted it was difficult to say when the council would reach a conclusion.
South Korea, citing the findings of a multinational investigation, has accused its communist neighbor of torpedoing the 1,200-tonne corvette with the loss of 46 sailors near the disputed Yellow Sea border on March 26.
The South announced its own reprisals, including cutting off most trade. With strong US support, it also asked the 15-member council to censure the North.
The North has denied any involvement in the sinking and has threatened a military response to any such UN statement.
Unlike many other nations, permanent Security Council members China and Russia have not publicly accused Pyongyang of being behind the sinking.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported yesterday that China was apparently blocking any reference in the council that would point directly to North Korea as the culprit.
It is even trying to water down the term “torpedo attack,” which it believes is too strong, by replacing it with the word “incident,” Chosun said.
Seoul’s Yonhap news agency said late last week the discussions had been stalled largely due to the reluctance of China and Russia to pinpoint North Korea as the aggressor.
Meanwhile, a recent rise in the number of seaborne defections by North Koreans to South Korea has raised suspicions that some may be agents for the communist state, a report said yesterday.
The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing government sources, said there had been five such cases since tensions rose after the sinking of the warship.
In the latest case, two North Koreans were spotted by the South’s Navy on a barge in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) on June 26.
“They said their motive was to defect from the military and they were taken to the appropriate government organizations,” the newspaper quoted a source as saying.
Defections by sea are fairly unusual since small boats are guarded in the North. A source quoted by the paper said intelligence agents are interrogating the alleged defectors about their background.
The sources said the cases might result from tighter security by China along its border with North Korea, the escape route used by the vast majority of North Koreans, but they might also be an attempt by the North to check security on the South’s coastline after the Cheonan sinking.
Yonhap news agency said seven North Koreans had come south by boat since the warship incident. Last week a Seoul court jailed for 10 years two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the North to enter the South via Southeast Asia. Their mission was to kill a top-ranking defector, but they were exposed soon after arriving.
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