South Korea’s president hinted strongly yesterday that North Korea was involved in the sinking of a warship with the loss of 46 lives and ordered a security upgrade to counter cross-border threats.
The comments by President Lee Myung-bak were the closest he has come to blaming the North for the blast that tore apart a corvette near the disputed sea border on March 26.
Lee, presiding over an unprecedented meeting between a South Korean president and top officers from all armed services, said it was clear the Cheonan warship “did not sink due to a simple accident.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
“As soon as this incident occurred, I had an intuition that it was a grave international issue involving inter-Korean relations and ordered that the cause be found out through international cooperation,” Lee said.
He pledged “clear and resolute measures” when the cause is established following a multinational probe.
Lee, saying defenses had become slack, also announced plans to form an agency to overhaul national security and a new post of special secretary for national security.
Suspicions are growing that the 1,200-tonne ship was hit by a torpedo from the North, which has denied involvement.
Defense minister Kim Tae-young, in a report to Lee, said a “surprise attack” on the Cheonan had revealed a loophole in the nation’s defenses.
March 26 was a “day of shame” for South Korea’s military, he said.
Lee last Friday briefed Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the sinking, apparently seeking China’s backing if the South asks the UN Security Council to punish the North.
Seoul’s unification minister Hyun In-taek, who oversees relations with the North, urged China to play a “responsible role” in easing tensions on the peninsula following the sinking and problems with a joint tour project.
“It is requested more than ever that China play a responsible role as the current state of affairs on the Korean peninsula is unfolding in a dynamic way,” Hyun told Beijing’s new ambassador to South Korea, Zhang Xinsen (張鑫森).
Lee, in comments underlining his suspicions of Pyongyang, said that Seoul must reshape military capabilities, “taking into account our special situation of two hostile forces facing each other.”
The South must be better prepared to tackle “asymmetric” military threats including special warfare units.
Aside from the navy’s apparent failure to detect an impending attack, critics have said it took too long to notify top officials of the disaster and too much time to locate the ship’s sunken sections.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS