UNSC to hold emergency session on Korea tensions Sun.

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NEW YORK/SEOUL, Dec. 19 Kyodo -
The U.N. Security Council will convene an emergency session Sunday to discuss
growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as South Korea vowed to go ahead with
a plan to hold a live-fire drill off an island near its border with North Korea
on Monday or Tuesday.
Fears of a fresh clash between the two Koreas have been rising as North Korea
has vowed to retaliate against South Korea if it goes ahead with the artillery
exercise from Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, which was shelled by the
North's military on Nov. 23.
The emergency meeting is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. The session, requested
by Russia, was initially expected for Saturday afternoon.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, on a private mission to North Korea for talks
with officials to defuse the tensions, said he hopes the U.N. Security Council
will adopt a ''strong resolution calling for self restraint from all sides in
order to seek peaceful means to resolve this dispute.''
''A U.N. resolution could provide cover for all sides that prevents aggressive
military action,'' Richardson said in a statement issued through his office in
the state capital Santa Fe.
The U.S. governor said he ''strongly urged maximum restraint in response to
South Korea's planned military drills'' as he met First Vice Foreign Minister
Kim Kye Gwan on Saturday and Pak Rim Su, deputy chief of the Korean People's
Army delegation to the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom, on Sunday.
In Seoul, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said that threats from North Korea
and diplomatic considerations ''will be ruled out'' in carrying out the planned
drill, Yonhap News Agency reported.
''The planned firing drill is part of the usual exercises conducted by our
troops based on Yeonpyeong Island. The drill can be justifiable, as it will
occur within our territorial waters,'' Yonhap quoted the official as saying.
''We won't take into consideration North Korean threats and diplomatic
situations before holding the live-fire drill. If weather permits, it will be
held as scheduled,'' he said.
On Saturday night, the foreign ministers of China and Russia urged South and
North Korea and other parties concerned to avoid escalation of the tension on
the peninsula, according to Xinhua News Agency.
China and Russia are among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security
Council, along with Britain, France and the United States.
China ''demands both sides on the peninsula show calmness and restraint, carry
out dialogue and contact, and completely avoid any actions that would fuel the
tension,'' Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was quoted as telling his Russian
counterpart Sergei Lavrov in telephone talks Saturday night.
Lavrov was quoted as saying that Russia ''has expressed great concern to
relevant countries and demanded utmost calmness and restraint from all parties
concerned,'' and that Moscow ''is willing to work with China to make active
efforts to reduce the tension on the peninsula.''
Yang, who is accompanying Premier Wen Jiabao on a visit to Pakistan, said China
hopes other parties concerned will make greater efforts to ease the situation
on the peninsula, according to Xinhua.
North Korea said Saturday that the United States is ''wholly to blame'' for
what would be a second Yeonpyeong Island incident because it instigated South
Korea to perpetrate the provocation.
''The entire international community including the neighboring countries is
demanding an unconditional halt to the dangerous shelling from the island but
it is only the U.S. that is openly egging them onto it,'' a Foreign Ministry
spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News
Agency.
North Korea ''will force the U.S. to pay dearly for all the worst situations
prevailing on the peninsula and its ensuing consequences,'' the unidentified
spokesman was quoted as saying.
On Nov. 23, North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong Island with artillery, killing four
people and causing extensive damage. Pyongyang claims the strike was in
retaliation for an earlier live-fire exercise by South Korea during which
shells fell into what the North claims as its territorial waters.
The U.N. Security Council has yet to hold a plenary session specifically to
discuss the November shelling by North Korea.
==Kyodo
2010-12-19 22:15:13