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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Nork defense minister demands S. Korea accept inspection over sinking |
| 2010-05-23 |
| SEOUL, May 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's defense minister demanded Saturday that South Korea "unconditionally" allow a delegation from Pyongyang to look into the accusation that the communist state mounted a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March. South Korea, citing a multinational investigation, announced Thursday that a North Korean submarine had torpedoed its 1,200-ton warship Cheonan near the Yellow Sea border on March 26, killing 46 sailors. North Korea immediately denied involvement, warning that it would respond with an "all-out war" if punished for it. It also offered to dispatch an "inspection group" to check the allegation, a proposal rejected by Seoul on Friday. Kim Yong-chun, minister of the North's People's Armed Forces, told official media that the South Korean refusal to accept the delegation amounts to the "sophistry of a robber." The South Korean government of Lee Myung-bak "should unconditionally receive the inspection group and clarify the truth in the eyes of the world," the North's defense chief was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency monitored in Seoul. Kim is a member of the North's 13-member National Defense Commission, the highest seat of power headed by leader Kim Jong-il. He is the highest-ranking North Korean official to be quoted yet in Pyongyang's strenuous denial of involvement in the sinking. In a message sent to Pyongyang on Friday, South Korea rejected the North's proposal to send an inspection team, saying that its communist neighbor can clarify its position in a meeting of the Korean Military Armistice Commission, a body that oversees the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. South Korea says that a multinational team of investigators, backed by "overwhelming evidence" that includes parts of a North Korean torpedo used in the attack, has concluded that Pyongyang was behind the sinking. On Friday, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said North Korea "will pay the price." Seoul and Washington are considering elevating their joint military alert status by one notch. The U.S. maintains some 28,500 forces in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. If the American-led UNC probe concludes that North Korea violated the armistice, it will demand that the Korean Military Armistice Commission take up the issue, South Korean officials said. But the commission has been in limbo since the early 1990s when North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the body after accusing it of being pro-American. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 IMO KIMMIE + BOYZ are all but officially demanding that POTUS BAMMER + ONLY THE BAMMER do something NORTH KOREA. Read, US MIL RESPONSE AGZ DPRK. Sub-read, IRAN. 2010-2010/2025 = may prove to be THE DECADE OF US-GLOBAL NUKE-WMDS TERROR, as symbolized by IRAN + MILTERR NUCLEARIZATION 2010-2012. MORESO IFF POTUS BAMMER = USA IS DEEMED AS LACKING MILPOL RESOLVE IN THE FACE OF A FORMAL ADMISSION OF A HOSTILE MIL ACT AGZ ONE OR MORE MAJOR US ALLIES, IN ASIA ANDOR MIDDLE EAST. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-05-23 19:20 |
| #2 Weasel and spin all you want, Kim Bob. We smelled the kimchee on the torpedo fragments. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2010-05-23 15:21 |
| #1 Unconditionally? |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-05-23 04:26 |