UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council is to meet Sunday over mounting Korean tensions as US troubleshooter Bill Richardson negotiates in Pyongyang to avoid military disaster threatened by North Korea. Richardson put a series of proposals to top North Korean officials in tough meetings after South Korea said it would proceed with a live-fire drill on a frontline island despite strongly worded threats of retaliation from the North.
“It’s a very, very tense situation, a crisis situation,” Richardson told CNN on Sunday from Pyongyang. “This is when the UN Security Council can be most effective.” The South plans its exercise in the coming days for Yeonpyeong Island near the disputed Yellow Sea border, where four people were killed in an artillery bombardment by the North in November that sparked global alarm.
Richardson, who is governor of New Mexico and a close ally of US President Barack Obama, proposed to North Korean officials that the two Koreas set up a military hotline to address incidents along their border, CNN reported Sunday. He also lobbied for a military commission with members from North and South Korea plus the United States to monitor disputed areas in the Yellow Sea.
Officially visiting in a private capacity, Richardson said he hoped the Security Council would issue a statement “urging all sides to exercise maximum restraint (and to) cool things down”. He spoke to CNN after meeting Major General Pak Rim Su, who leads North Korean forces along the tense border with the South, describing their talks Sunday as “very tough” but making “some progress”.
Richardson said Pyongyang was “very, very provoked” by the South’s planned drill, although the North Korean general was open to his idea for a military commission. Russia, which had called for the Security Council to meet in “emergency” session on Saturday, expressed anger that its meeting scheduled for Sunday morning had not been organised earlier.
“We regret that. We believe that such a step by the president is a departure from the practice existing in the council,” Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said. The United States, which is president of the Security Council for December, rejected the criticism. “This meets other Security Council members’ requests to have time to consult with their capitals and meets the Russian request for a timely meeting,” said US mission spokesman Mark Kornblau.
The foreign ministers of China and Russia held telephone talks Saturday and urged South Korea to cancel its military exercise. “China firmly opposes any actions to cause tension and worsen the situation, and demands both sides on the peninsula show calmness and restraint,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said.
The Koreas must “carry out dialogue and contact, and completely avoid any actions that would fuel the tension,” Yang said. Pyongyang has threatened “disaster” if the South stages the drill on Yeonpyeong, and a foreign ministry statement Saturday accused US troops — some 20 of whom who will take part in the drill — of providing a human shield.
The North said the exercise “would make it impossible to prevent the situation on the Korean peninsula from exploding and escape its ensuing disaster”. Seoul Korea has rejected calls for the drill to be abandoned, and said the one-day exercise may take place on Monday or Tuesday.
