Jigs
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2009
- Messages
- 3,735
- Reaction score
- 0
Clinton says N Korea must face consequences for attack - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review
Friday, May 21, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea The Associated Press
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says it is important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences. South vows to make North pay the price for torpedoing a warship, as international anger grows over the attack which claimed 46 lives
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the evidence is "overwhelming" that a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship and the isolated country must face international consequences for its actions.
Speaking in Tokyo at the outset of a three-nation Asian trip, Clinton said the U.S., Japan, South Korea and China are consulting on an appropriate reaction to an international investigation that blamed North Korea for the incident.
She said the report proves a North Korean sub fired a torpedo that sank the ship, the Cheonan, in March and that it could no longer be "business as usual" in dealing with the matter. While it was "premature" to discuss exact options or actions that will be taken in response, Clinton said it was "important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences."
"The evidence is overwhelming and condemning. The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan and took the lives of 46 South Korean sailors was fired by a North Korean submarine," she told reporters at a joint press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. "We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community," she said. "This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international, not just a regional, but an international response."
North Korea denies it was responsible for the sinking and has threatened to retaliate against any attempt to punish it with "all-out war." North Korea "will regard the present situation as the phase of a war and handle all problems in inter-Korean relations accordingly," Ri Chung Bok, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, said in an interview with broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the sinking a "military provocation" and said it violated the U.N. Charter as well as the truce that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 conflict. But he called for a cautious response to this "serious and grave" issue.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, speaking to reporters, called the request "irrational and incomprehensible." Instead, Kim's ministry requested the U.N. Command's Military Armistice Commission, which oversees the truce, to conduct a probe separate from the multinational investigation.
Pyongyang reacted angrily Friday for a second day, with a senior official saying Seoul's stance was threatening peace and stability on the divided peninsula. North Korea "will regard the present situation as the phase of a war and handle all problem in inter-Korean relations accordingly," Ri Chung Bok, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, said in an exclusive interview with broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang.
"If the South Korean puppet regime opts for countermeasures or retaliation over this ship sinking, we will respond mercilessly with the total freeze of inter-Korean relations, abrogation of the North-South agreement on non-aggression and a complete halt to the inter-Korean cooperation undertakings," Ri said.
Friday, May 21, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea The Associated Press
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says it is important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences. South vows to make North pay the price for torpedoing a warship, as international anger grows over the attack which claimed 46 lives
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the evidence is "overwhelming" that a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship and the isolated country must face international consequences for its actions.
Speaking in Tokyo at the outset of a three-nation Asian trip, Clinton said the U.S., Japan, South Korea and China are consulting on an appropriate reaction to an international investigation that blamed North Korea for the incident.
She said the report proves a North Korean sub fired a torpedo that sank the ship, the Cheonan, in March and that it could no longer be "business as usual" in dealing with the matter. While it was "premature" to discuss exact options or actions that will be taken in response, Clinton said it was "important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences."
"The evidence is overwhelming and condemning. The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan and took the lives of 46 South Korean sailors was fired by a North Korean submarine," she told reporters at a joint press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. "We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community," she said. "This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international, not just a regional, but an international response."
North Korea denies it was responsible for the sinking and has threatened to retaliate against any attempt to punish it with "all-out war." North Korea "will regard the present situation as the phase of a war and handle all problems in inter-Korean relations accordingly," Ri Chung Bok, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, said in an interview with broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the sinking a "military provocation" and said it violated the U.N. Charter as well as the truce that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 conflict. But he called for a cautious response to this "serious and grave" issue.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, speaking to reporters, called the request "irrational and incomprehensible." Instead, Kim's ministry requested the U.N. Command's Military Armistice Commission, which oversees the truce, to conduct a probe separate from the multinational investigation.
Pyongyang reacted angrily Friday for a second day, with a senior official saying Seoul's stance was threatening peace and stability on the divided peninsula. North Korea "will regard the present situation as the phase of a war and handle all problem in inter-Korean relations accordingly," Ri Chung Bok, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, said in an exclusive interview with broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang.
"If the South Korean puppet regime opts for countermeasures or retaliation over this ship sinking, we will respond mercilessly with the total freeze of inter-Korean relations, abrogation of the North-South agreement on non-aggression and a complete halt to the inter-Korean cooperation undertakings," Ri said.
and we have just started to explore them.
