SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea accused South Korea's navy Tuesday of trespassing in its waters and threatened military action, further raising tensions sparked by the sinking of one of Seoul's warships in March.
The South has announced a series of reprisals including a trade ban after a multinational investigation concluded last week that a North Korean submarine had torpedoed the Cheonan on March 26.
The communist North denies involvement in the sinking, which claimed 46 lives and brought it widespread international condemnation. It threatens full-scale war if there is any attempt to punish it.
The North's military made its complaint Tuesday in a message to the South's armed forces, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency reported.
Over 10 days ending Monday, it said, dozens of the South's naval ships had intruded into the North's waters.
"This is a deliberate provocation aimed to spark off another military conflict in the West (Yellow) Sea of Korea and thus push to a war phase the present North-South relations that reached the lowest ebb," KCNA quoted the message as saying.
If the intrusions continued, the North "will put into force practical military measures to defend its waters...and the South side will be held fully accountable for all the ensuing consequences".
The defence ministry denied any of its ships had crossed the border known as the Northern Limit Line, which the North refuses to accept.
The USA has a long list of economic things we have wanted China to do for a decade --- like float the yuan/renminbi.
China doesn't want to.
And it appears no one can make them - especially now that the Obama Administration wants China's help taming the North Korean menace.
HMMM: Might China have encouraged recent North Korean adventurism as a distraction, so they can say to the Obama, "We will help you with North Korea but only if you leave us COMPLETELY alone as far as our currency goes and as far as our domestic human rights policies, too."???
This would get the Chinese off the hook. IOW: They use North Korea to trick us into letting them get to play the Good Cop while they're excused for pursuing economic and rights policies which hurt more than a billion people globally.
To believe that China has no involvement with North Korea's aggression, one would have to believe that North Korea is a rogue even as far as China is concerned.
IS THIS CREDIBLE!?
I think not: North Korea is ENTIRELY dependent on China and wouldn't do ANYTHING to jeopardize their relationship with China. China could topple Kim Jung Il anytime they want they wanted to. Kim knows this.
Apparently, the Chinese do not want Kin gone.
WHY NOT?!?!
The current tyrant of North Korea suits China's needs. It distracts the USA and the West from pressuring China for China's bad policies.