S Korea 'to hold' live-fire drills

Seoul appears unwilling to back down over planned military drills, despite UN fears and threats from the North. Last Modified: 20 Dec 2010 01:17 GMT

North Korea shelled part of Yeonpyeong island last month [Reuters] South Korea is set to press ahead with a live-fire military drill despite rising tensions with the North that have prompted an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting. Residents of Yeonpyeong island, which lies in disputed waters off the Korean peninsula's west coast, were ordered to move into air raid bunkers ahead of the military exercise on Monday, according to South Korean media. North Korea has threatened to strike if the South goes ahead with its military drill. Four South Koreans were killed on Yeonpyeong last month when the North shelled part of the island. Steve Chao, Al Jazeera's correspondent, reporting from Incheon, said that officials on the island were expecting the military manouvers to go ahead. "They tell us that the bad weather that has been hampering and delaying the artillery fire is expected to lift today which clears the way for the live-fire drill to go ahead," he said. "In South Korea the decision to press ahead is very controversial ... however there is still a general sense among the populace that South Korea needs to get tough with the North." Emergency meeting The UN Security Council met on Sunday amid the rising tension between North and South Korea, but failed to agree on a statement. The 15 member bloc was split over whether to publicly blame North Korea for touching off the crisis, with China, North Korea's staunchest supporter on the council, and Russia rejecting the idea of assigning blame to Pyongyang. Following the Security Council meeting, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN envoy, called for South Korea to halt its planned military exercises. "It's better to refrain from doing this exercise at this point in time," he said. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said the impasse was unlikely to be bridged. UN divided The Reuters news agency reported diplomats as saying that a Russian draft statement called on both sides to exercise "maximum restraint" while a British draft statement had the council saying it "deplores" North Korea's latest actions. US and Chinese officials have described the situation on the Korean Peninsula as "extremely precarious" and a "tinderbox". But China has blocked recent Western attempts to get the Security Council to rebuke Pyongyang over the deadly artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong and the North's nuclear activities. The UN Secretariat distributed to council members a document on an investigation into the November 23 incident by the so-called UN Command, the US-led military forces in South Korea that monitor compliance with the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War. That probe concluded the South did not violate the armistice with its November 23 military drills in disputed waters, while the North committed a "deliberate and premeditated attack" that was a "serious violation" of the cease-fire, according to the document, the Reuters news agency reported.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies