TENSIONS SURROUNDING North Korea continued to rise yesterday as Chinese fishing boats were seen pulling away from its coast, but US secretary of defence Robert Gates said the situation was not a crisis and that no additional US troops would be sent to the region.
North Korea followed up Monday’s nuclear test with missile launches and a threat of war. As the alert level in South Korea remained high, there were growing fears of military skirmishes between the Koreas after North Korea renounced the truce keeping peace between them since 1953.
This is crab-fishing season, and the waters off the coast of North Korea are normally full of fishing boats bringing in nets. However, analysts now believe the waters off the west coast could be the site for a naval clash. There have been two naval skirmishes on the disputed maritime border between the two Koreas in 1999 and 2002 and the North has warned another could happen soon.
The US and Japan were circulating a draft UN Security Council proposal among the five permanent veto-wielding council members, which also includes Russia, China, Britain and France – and the two countries most closely affected by the nuclear test, Japan and South Korea.
The draft proposal reportedly envisages a condemnation of Pyongyang’s second nuclear test and a demand for strict enforcement of sanctions agreed after the North’s first atomic test in October 2006. A vote could come as early as next week.
China is expected to back the sanctions this time around – previously it has vetoed any efforts to sanction the North Koreans.
North Korea said it would take “self-defence measures” in response to any efforts to sanction it and accused the Security Council of hypocrisy.
“If the UN Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defence measures,” the North’s foreign ministry said in a statement run on the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“There is a limit to our patience. The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth’s 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have conducted 99.99 per cent of the total nuclear tests,” the statement said.
The demilitarised zone (DMZ) has 28,500 US troops supporting South Korea’s 670,000 soldiers, facing over one million North Korean troops. The North is also capable of heavily shelling Seoul within minutes from its artillery positions at the border.
While Pyongyang lacks the wherewithal to miniaturise its nuclear capabilities into a warhead, the test this week does bring them a step closer to real nuclear capability.
North Korea repeatedly says it is preparing to defend itself against plans by the United States to launch a pre-emptive strike to overthrow its communist government. The US has repeatedly denied any intention to attack North Korea.
The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, but not a peace treaty, at the end of the war in 1953.