South Korea edges closer to live-fire drills as U.N. council holds emergency meeting

Sunday, December 19, 2010; 11:54 AM

SEOUL - South Korea on Sunday showed no sign of reconsidering its plan for live-fire drills on Yeonpyeong Island, despite North Korean threats of retaliation and mounting international efforts to prevent an intra-peninsular showdown.

South Korean military officials on Sunday reiterated their intention to hold the drills on either Monday or Tuesday, depending on clear weather, setting up a potential crisis that the United Nations Security Council was addressing in a closed-door emergency meeting. North Korea has said that if Seoul goes ahead with the artillery drills on Yeonpyeong Island - just seven miles from the North Korean coastline - it will lead to "catastrophe."

Russia urged the emergency gathering of the U.N. Security Council, circulating a draft statement that calls "on all parties concerned to exercise maximum restraint." It also suggested that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon send an envoy to North and South Korea "to settle peacefully the current crisis situation."

South Korea could still use the growing international pressure as a cover to cancel its latest military exercises, but weeks earlier Seoul drew fierce domestic criticism for its feeble response to North Korea"s Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that killed two marines and two civilians. Since then South Korea has replaced its defense minister and upped its aggressive rhetoric, vowing airstrikes if Pyongyang attacks again.

The U.S. State Department has defended Seoul"s right to hold the drills, and roughly 20 U.S. military members will take part in the live-fire drill. But China has spoken out against the drills, with Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu urging "dialogue rather than confrontation."

"As China has repeatedly stressed, if conflict and bloodshed happen on the Peninsula, the first to suffer would be people on both sides of the Peninsula," Jiang said, in remarks posted Sunday on China"s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site. "It will also certainly undermine peace and stability in the region and affect neighboring countries."

Given the tension, analysts fear that a slight miscalculation in Seoul or Pyongyang could lead to war. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in the middle of a four-day trip to Pyongyang, has fashioned himself as a private peacekeeper, and on Sunday he met with North Korean Maj. Gen. Pak Rim-su, who advises on the policy of the powerful National Defense Commission.

According to Richardson, speaking in an interview with CNN, he offered Gen. Pak two suggestions: He recommended a military-to-military hotline between North and South Korea, and he proposed a military commission featuring representatives from Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington. Richardson said Gen. Pak seemed "very open" to the ideas.

"I urged the general to listen to the United Nations Security Council when it meets on Sunday," Richardson said. "Hopefully they will exercise restraint. And that will be an opportunity for North Korea to cool down, to tamp down - for all sides to tamp down."

South Korea, if it goes ahead with the live-fire drills, promises to fire south - away from North Korean territory. But North Korea considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island as its own, and disputes legitimacy of the Northern Limit Line that serves as a maritime border in the Yellow Sea.

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