South Korea to take North Korea to UN over ship sinking

SEOUL (AP) – South Korea will take Pyongyang to the UN Security Council as part of measures it will pursue over the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack, officials said yesterday.

An international team of investigators announced last week that a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo on March 26, tearing apart the 1,200-ton Cheonan and killing 46 sailors on board. North Korea called the investigation results a fabrication and warned any retaliation would trigger war.

President Lee Myung-bak will address the nation today to define the tragedy as a “clear armed provocation” by North Korea and disclose his resolve to take “stern” action against the regime, according to his press adviser, Lee Dong-kwan.

Lee will announce what measures South Korea can take against North Korea on its own and in cooperation with the international community, the adviser said. The president “will also speak about referring (North Korea) to the UN Security Council,” he said.

It is unclear what measures Seoul would solicit from the world body against Pyongyang. In general, however, punitive measures against a country involved in provocative acts include economic sanctions and adopting a statement condemning its acts, a presidential official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

President Lee will also announce that South Korea will take all available “strong countermeasures” if North Korea engages in additional provocations, the adviser said.

After Lee makes a speech, his defense, foreign and unification ministers will hold a joint news conference later today to disclose what specific steps they will take against North Korea, according to the presidential adviser.

He gave no details. But news reports have said those measures include South Korea’s massive anti-submarine drills with the United States near the site of the sinking, resuming propaganda broadcasts near the land border, drastically scaling back remaining economic exchange programs with North Korea and barring North Korean vessels from its waters.

Any such action is certain to draw angry response from North Korea, which has stepped its war rhetoric in recent days over the ship sinking.

“The army and people of (North Korea) will never pardon the group of traitors getting hell-bent on confrontation and war (and who) dare taking issue with fellow countrymen,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary yesterday, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It threatened to “crush” South Korea, calling its Cheonan report an “enormous fabrication.”

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The tension comes amid US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to the region. Clinton is in China where she faces a diplomatic struggle to win Beijing’s support for penalizing its ally North Korea for the sinking.

In Tokyo on Friday, Clinton said the evidence was “overwhelming” that North Korea was behind the sinking and that the reclusive communist country must face international consequences.

She is expected in Seoul on Wednesday.