North Korea yesterday forswore retaliation against a South Korean live-fire drill and held out an olive branch over its nuclear drive, raising hopes for an easing to the region’s worst crisis in years.
The communist state said it “did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation”, despite previously vowing a deadly riposte to the South’s drill on the border island of Yeonpyeong.
“The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war,” the North’s military command said in a statement on the official news agency KCNA.
North Korea had used a November 23 live-fire exercise by South Korean marines on Yeonpyeong to justify a bombardment of the Yellow Sea island that killed four people.
South Korea, defying Chinese and Russian pressure, went ahead with another exercise yesterday that involved heavy artillery, air force jets and the reported deployment of two naval destroyers.
The drill came after the UN Security Council Sunday failed to agree a statement on the Korean crisis, with diplomats saying that China had refused to allow any public condemnation of its communist allies in Pyongyang.
China yesterday issued a strong appeal at the UN for “maximum restraint” by the two Koreas and vowed to make new efforts to ease the military tensions.
“We strongly appeal relevant parties to exercise maximum restraint, act in a responsible manner and avoid increase of tensions,” China’s deputy ambassador Wang Min said in a rare public statement at the UN.
“China strongly urges both sides of the peninsula to keep calm and restraint, solve issues through peaceful dialogue and engagement. China will continue to make our efforts toward this end,” Mr Wang said.
Seoul, which was outraged last month by the first shelling of civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War, rejected criticism from Beijing and Moscow.
“As a sovereign nation, it is our just right to stage a military exercise for the defence of our territory... nobody can intervene,” President Lee Myung-Bak said, after winning reaffirmations of US and Japanese support.
Yonhap news agency said the South fired 1,500 rounds from various guns including K-9 self-propelled howitzers, 105mm howitzers and 81mm mortars during the drill.