[PHOTO AT LEFT - Choe Thae Bok, chairman of North Korea's Supreme People Assembly, walks towards his car upon his arrival at an airport in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010. China quickened its diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between North and South Korea, calling for an emergency meeting of envoys to North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.]
SEOUL, DECEMBER 1, 2010 (STAR) As US-South Korean war games continued Tuesday, the United States and two crucial Asian allies agreed to meet in Washington for talks about North Korea's attack on a South Korean island and the North's nuclear weapons programs.
Although North Korean rhetoric remained high — the country warned the military drills could trigger "full-blown war" — a senior North Korean official left Pyongyang for talks with leaders in the country's only major ally, China.
The visit of Choe Thae Bok, the chairman of North Korea's parliament, to Beijing, combined with the planned Washington meeting, raised hopes that a diplomatic solution could be found.
Even as Choe traveled to Beijing, however, the North reminded the world it was forging ahead with its nuclear efforts. Pyongyang said Tuesday that it's operating a modern uranium enrichment plant equipped with thousands of centrifuges. The main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial that the North is also building light-water reactors. The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the uranium enrichment is entirely for peaceful purposes.
The North first revealed the program in early November to a visiting American scientist. A light-water nuclear power reactor is ostensibly for civilian energy purposes, but it gives the North a reason to enrich uranium. Uranium enrichment would give the North a second way to make nuclear bombs, in addition to its known plutonium-based program.
North Korea has pushed for renewed international talks on receiving much-needed aid in return for commitments to dismantle nuclear programs, and its recent aggression could reflect frustration that those talks remain stalled.
The North unleashed an artillery barrage on a South Korean island Nov. 23 that hit civilian areas marking a new level of hostility along the country's contested maritime border. The attack killed two civilians and two marines.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took responsibility Monday for failing to protect his citizens and pledged a tough response if the North carries out any further attacks.
Foreign ministers from South Korea, the United States and Japan are to meet in Washington in early December to discuss the shelling and North Korea's nuclear program, according to Seoul's Foreign Ministry.
Despite the diplomacy, tension in the region remained high.
On Tuesday, the North's propaganda machine issued a warning that the South Korea-US drills, involving a nuclear-powered US supercarrier, could trigger a "full-blown war" on the peninsula.
"Our republic has a war deterrent that can annihilate any aggressor at once," the Pyongyang's government-run Minju Joson said in a commentary. "A northward provocative war means a self-destruction."
On the streets of Pyongyang, North Koreans spoke with pride of their military.
"Those who like fire are bound to be punished with fire," Kim Yong Jun, a Pyongyang resident, told international broadcaster APTN. "If the US imperialists and South Korean puppets continue to gather the clouds of war, the Korean army and people will never forgive them."
A rally in Seoul drew several thousand protesters who burned North Korean flags and demanded stronger action against the communist neighbor. Another small protest of about 20 people called for calm, with a monk holding a banner reading, "Yes peace, not war!"
About 85 former South Korean special agents whose mission was to infiltrate North Korea went to Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday and said they would stay for a week to help with reconstruction. They criticized the North's attack and urged the South Korean government to punish Pyongyang.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Monday that the UN Security Council is studying how to respond to the shelling as well as the recent uranium revelations.
Yonhap news agency reported that Choe, the North Korean official, will stay in China for five days and was invited by Wu Bangguo, chairman of the rubber-stamp National People's Congress.
Choe, who concurrently serves as a ruling Workers' Party secretary, was expected to meet top Chinese communist party officials and discuss last week's artillery barrage, the North's nuclear program and the US-South Korean military drills, Yonhap said.
Choe visited China in late September and briefed President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders about the North's decision to give top political posts to a son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Yonhap said.
China, North Korea's only major ally, has sought to calm tensions by calling for an emergency meeting among regional powers involved in six-party nuclear disarmament talks — among the two Koreas, the US, China, Russian and Japan — which have been stalled since last year.
Seoul, which wants proof of Pyongyang's commitment to denuclearization as well as a show of regret over the March sinking of a warship, reacted coolly to the proposal.
Japan rejected a new round of aid-for-disarmament talks any time soon. Foreign Ministry Seiji Maehara said in an interview with national broadcaster TBS late Monday that North Korea must first honor past commitments on disarmament.
FROM THE UK GUARDIAN
US rejects talks with North Korea ByTania Branigan in Beijing and agencies guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 10.40 GMT
(PHOTO - South Korea says two soldier and two civilians have been killed after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells at the island of Yeonpyeong. Photograph: AP)
The US has rejected Chinese proposals to ease the conflict with multiparty talks.
The US has snubbed Chinese proposals to ease the Korean confrontation through emergency multiparty talks including the North, with a White House spokesman dismissing the suggestion as a "PR activity".
Beijing had called for the talks by the six parties involved in the stalled North Korean aid-for-denuclearisation discussions after a Northern artillery barrage killed four people, including two civilians, on a Southern island of Yeonpyeong. Tensions on the peninsula are at their highest for years, with joint military drills by the US and the South under way in the Yellow Sea today.
The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, told reporters: "The United States and a host of others, I don't think, are not interested in stabilising the region through a series of PR activities."
According to the New York Times, he added that talks "without an understanding and agreement from the North Koreans to both end their behaviour as they exhibited last week, but also to come to the table with a seriousness of purpose on the denuclearisation issue – without that seriousness of purpose, they're just a PR activity".
Seoul has indicated its lack of interest, and Japan's foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, said last night that such talks were "impossible" after the Yeonpyeong shelling.
South Korea said today its officials would meet counterparts from Japan and the US in Washington early next month to discuss the North's expanded nuclear programme, the attack on Yeonpyeong and a Chinese proposal for emergency talks.
China repeated its call for dialogue, with the foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, telling a regular press briefing: "Bringing the issue back to dialogue and consultation at an early date is in the common interest of all parties and is the common aspiration of the international community. Ensuring the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula is the shared responsibility of all sides."
Hong said China had made the proposal "to ease the situation" and to provide a platform for dialogue.
Beijing has come under intense pressure to rein in its neighbour and ally over the attack, near the disputed maritime border of the two Koreas. It has refrained from criticising Pyongyang – which says it acted in response to the South's live-fire exercise – instead urging both sides to show restraint.
US diplomatic cables revealed today by the Guardian and other WikiLeaks partners show China's frustration with the North. According to the documents, a south Korean official "claimed [high-level Chinese officials] believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korean] control". Another told the US Pyongyang was acting like a "spoiled child" to get Washington's attention.
China does not want instability and a flood of refugees, and analysts believe it would be deeply unhappy to see a US-dominated Korea on its doorstep.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that president Lee Myung-bak had rebuked his cabinet members for not having the "right sense of crisis".
The government has been heavily criticised at home, with some commentators saying it mishandled the initial response to the artillery bombardment. The defence minister resigned last week.
According to a spokeswoman for his office, Lee told his colleagues: "We should recognise that (South Korea) is confronting the world's most belligerent group."
He added that there seemed to be a perception that dealing with a national crisis was a task only for the defence ministry, when it should be a matter for all of them.
The high stakes in the confrontation were underscored when North Korea detailed its increased nuclear programme for the first time today, saying it had thousands of centrifuges. It added that these were for peaceful purposes. It announced the expansion in an article in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by state news agency KCNA.
Officials in Pyongyang had sought to send a message to the US by showing an American scientist a new uranium enrichment plant this month. He said the "stunning" facility had 2,000 centrifuges.
Enriching uranium gives the North a second source to make nuclear bombs. It has twice tested devices, to international anger.
A senior North Korean official arrived in Beijing this morning for a five-day visit. Choe Thae Bok is chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly.
EARLIER NEWS FROM UK GUARDIAN
Washington's message to Pyongyang By Tom Rogan guard ian.co.uk, Saturday 27 November 2010 17.00 GMT
By sending an aircraft carrier strike force to the Yellow Sea, the US is calling North Korea's bluff to end its military provocations.
[PHOTO - The nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier is to join manoeuvres this weekend in the Yellow Sea, following North Korea's recent shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. Photograph: AP Photo/Robert Catalano]
From Sunday, the US aircraft carrier USS George Washington and a number of her escort contingent will join a US-South Korean training exercise in the Yellow Sea. While this deployment was planned before the Yeonpyeong incident earlier this week, the fact that it will now involve a US carrier strike group is significant.
This US deployment is intended to transmit two precise messages. First, that any major North Korean attack on the South will have severe military and political repercussions. Second, to China, that the Chinese must exert their considerable influence over North Korea or the US military posture in the region will harden substantially.
This week's action by North Korea was a calibrated test to judge the South Korean/US response and attempt to pressure the US to return to stalled nuclear inspection talks. In many ways, the North's behaviour is nothing unusual. Since the late 1950s, the North has sought to exert varying political and economic concessions by spontaneously raising the spectre of another war. The "tree incident" of 1976, the Japanese missile incident in 1998 and this summer's submarine attack are just a few of the many dramatic actions that the North has taken in pursuit of its political strategy.
At the centre of this blackmail-based approach is the constant looming threat that the thousands of North Korean artillery pieces located along the DMZ pose to Seoul. In the time it would take US/South Korean forces to destroy these weapons, the South Korean capital would suffer terrible damage and casualties. By combining this capability with their erratic behaviour, the North Koreans have, under Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, sculpted a framework with which to extract concessions from the South and the United States. They have been successful on many occasions.
However, now that the North has deliberately attacked South Korean territory, the situation has changed. The United States now realises it must signal its intent to enact a much tougher approach. To allow the status quo to continue would fuel the current train of escalation and send a message of weakness to North Korean heir apparent Kim Jong Un. Sending the George Washington into the Yellow Sea will alter the status quo.
As a Nimitz class carrier, the USS George Washington is a potent embodiment of American military power. The comparative strength of the George Washington against North Korean's top military assets is simply overwhelming. Put simply, this strike group packs an almighty punch. The North Koreans know this.
By placing the carrier group off the North Korean coast in the immediate aftermath of a North Korean attack designed to achieve the opposite outcome (US appeasement), the US is sending an unmistakable message: do not test us. Although any war on the Korean peninsula would be a terrible and bloody affair, its outcome would not be in doubt.
Until now, the North Koreans have gambled that they can bluff their way to winning concessions without fear of losing control over their regime (the only real fear for the Kim dynasty). Likewise, the Chinese have long gambled that the US is too timid to risk any course but relative appeasement, so have had little interest in restraining North Korean actions. The Chinese must consider whether exerting pressure on North Korea's leadership is preferable to a new Korean War.
By deploying the George Washington, the US is avoiding unnecessary escalation (which retaliatory acts would incur); at the same time, it indicates very clearly that the US posture has changed. Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un must now consider whether to look at their cards again, and fold, or continue raising the stakes and risk their own destruction. The US is calling the North Koreans' bluff.
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