South Korea staged war games near the tense border with North Korea yesterday as Seoul worked to persuade doubters at home and abroad that Pyongyang was responsible for sinking one of its warships.
“There are some people in our society who spread groundless allegations and raise doubts about the outcome of a probe into the Cheonan. I feel sad and regretful,” South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Yu Myung-hwan said.
A multinational investigation team said May 20 it found overwhelming evidence that a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo that tore the Cheonan in two on March 26, with the loss of 46 lives.
PHOTO: REUTERS
South Korea announced a series of reprisals including cutting off trade with its communist neighbor. It plans, with US and Japanese support, to ask the UN Security Council to sanction — or at least to censure — the North.
Pyongyang furiously denies involvement in the Cheonan sinking and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war, sending regional tensions sharply higher.
Thousands of South Korean troops staged the military exercise to thwart a simulated attack by North Korea along a river just south of the border.
The show of military strength included about 50 tanks and armored vehicles, which crossed a floating bridge backed by dozens of attack helicopters and self-propelled guns, military officials said.
Numerous countries have condemned the North for the sinking in the Yellow Sea, one of the worst military attacks on the South since the Korean War.
For its appeal to the Security Council to succeed, the South needs the backing of veto-wielding members China and Russia.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) resisted pressure at a three-way weekend summit from the Japanese and South Korean leaders to publicly support the UN move or to condemn Beijing’s ally, North Korea.
Wen was in Tokyo yesterday, where Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama again urged him to support efforts to reprimand the North.
China says it will study the investigation report, while Russia sent a team of naval experts to South Korea yesterday to do the same.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said it needs “100 percent proof” of North Korea’s role.
Some South Koreans are also skeptical. A poll in Hankook Ilbo last week found that 24 percent of respondents don’t trust the investigation findings.
Young Internet users have raised doubts about the probe, while left-leaning opposition parties and groups accuse the government of using the case to win support from conservative voters in local elections tomorrow.
The Defense Ministry said yesterday it would select 20 Twitter users, 10 defense bloggers and 30 college reporters to visit the naval base where the wreckage of the Cheonan is housed.
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