From the Washington Post and the Heritage Foundation:
South Korea to officially blame North Korea for March torpedo attack on warship
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South Korea blames North Korea for torpedo attack on warship
South Korea says North Korea is responsible for the torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors aboard the Cheonan in March.
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By Blaine Harden and John Pomfret
Wednesday, May 19, 2010; 2:23 PM
SEOUL -- South Korea's foreign minister said Wednesday the sinking of one of its warships in March was the result of a North Korean attack, adding that his country now has enough evidence to seek action by the U.N. Security Council against the North.
This Story
S. Korea officially blames North for warship attack
South Korea blames North Korea for torpedo attack on warship
South Korean diplomat: "Obvious" North sank ship
"It's obvious," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said. His remarks were the first by a South Korean official to pin definitive blame on North Korea for an attack that killed 46 sailors and sharply escalated tension on the Korean Peninsula.
Yu spoke out a day before South Korea planned to release the results of an investigation that U.S. and East Asian officials say has uncovered strong evidence showing that North Korea launched a torpedo that sank the 1,200-ton Cheonan near a disputed sea border between the two nations.
South Korea has found a serial number -- written in a font used in North Korea -- on torpedo propeller fragments retrieved near the sunken ship and has also found traces of explosives in the wreckage that are identical to explosives found seven years ago in a stray North Korean torpedo, government officials told South Korean media.
North Korea imported the suspected weapon -- a heavy acoustic homing torpedo known as a Yu-3G -- from China in the 1980s, government officials told Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. When the investigation's findings are released Thursday, there will be a computer simulation of a 550-pound warhead striking the Cheonan, Yonhap said.
On Monday, North Korea for the first time directly denied that it was involved in the Cheonan's sinking. "We will not tolerate the confrontations and warmongering schemes of the puppet regime of South Korea," said Yang Hyong Sop, vice president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly.
The South Korean probe was done with the help of investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States. South Korea is seeking to use the investigation to garner broad international support for U.N. sanctions against North Korea and to persuade China, the primary patron and trade partner of North Korea, to support Seoul.
So far, China has been skeptical. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan last weekend that any conclusions about the sinking must be based on scientific and objective evidence. In Seoul on Tuesday, the Chinese ambassador to South Korea -- who has been openly doubtful of North Korea's involvement -- was among a small group of ambassadors who were briefed on the investigation.
Efforts to punish North Korea for its action, Yu told European diplomats and business leaders Wednesday, "will not have much effect without the concerted efforts of the international community."
Still, there is considerable doubt even in the South Korean Foreign Ministry about how far Seoul will be able to go with its charges against the North -- given China's veto power in the U.N. Security Council.
"We know that if we go to the Security Council, we don't have much of a chance," said a Foreign Ministry official, "because the sinking is probably going to be viewed as a conflict that happened during a cease-fire -- and not a conflict between two sovereign nations."
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty, and the two Koreas are technically still at war.
South Korea's conclusion underscores the continuing threat posed by North Korea and the intractable nature of the dispute between the two nations. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak must respond forcefully to the attack, analysts said, but not in a way that would risk further violence from North Korea, whose artillery could -- within minutes -- devastate greater Seoul, which has a population of more than 20 million. Lee is in his third year in office, and his party faces crucial local elections in June.
This Story
S. Korea officially blames North for warship attack
South Korea blames North Korea for torpedo attack on warship
South Korean diplomat: "Obvious" North sank ship
South Korea's report will present a challenge to China. The Chinese government enraged South Korea by waiting almost a month to express its condolences for the loss of life and, analysts and officials said, has seemed intent on sheltering North Korea from criticism.
China hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Il this month on his first visit to the country since 2004, just days after Chinese President Hu Jintao met with South Korea's Lee. South Korean officials later said they were hurt that their Chinese counterparts kept secret Kim's impending visit and then indicated publicly that China would continue aiding North Korea.
China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and largest investor, and its support is crucial in propping up the country's economy.
China has called on both parties to remain calm, but its fence-sitting risks damaging its ties with South Korea, East Asian officials said.
"The level of South Korean anger against China is the highest I have ever seen," said Brad Glosserman, executive director for Honolulu-based Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He described the sinking of the warship as "major formative experience" for a new generation of South Koreans as they come to grips with the unpredictable military threat posed by North Korea.
"China wants to be a wise giant treating all parties the same," said a senior diplomat. "But somebody committed murder here. This is ridiculous. This is a barometer for China. We are watching how they respond."
To that end, South Korea will request that the U.N. Security Council take up the issue in an effort to tighten sanctions on North Korea, the officials said. The United States has indicated it would support such an action, U.S. officials said. President Obama and Lee spoke via telephone on Monday, according to the White House. Lee briefed Obama on the probe, the White House said, and the two "committed to follow the facts of the investigation wherever they lead."
The Obama administration is also leaning toward relisting North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism, a move that would open the door for even more sanctions that could strike at the heart of North Korea's economy.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told his South Korean counterpart Monday that Japan would also support taking the issue to the Security Council, according to Japanese news media.
It is unclear whether Beijing would support taking the issue to the Security Council; a senior Chinese official said China would first need proof that North Korea launched the attack.
Analysts said China would be reluctant to take strong measures against North Korea because its main interest is to keep the country intact. North Korea's collapse would create hundreds of thousands of refugees and probably lead to the emergence of a Western-leaning united Korea on China's border.
This Story
S. Korea officially blames North for warship attack
South Korea blames North Korea for torpedo attack on warship
South Korean diplomat: "Obvious" North sank ship
"I just cannot imagine the Chinese saying, 'Okay, we agree with you. Let's go to the Security Council and condemn North Korea for their action,' " said Bonnie S. Glaser, a security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to raise the issue with China when she travels there this week. She will then go to Seoul for a half-day visit next week.
Another consequence of the report, experts predicted, is that Lee will request that the United States delay for several years a plan to pass operational control of all forces in South Korea from the United States to the South Korean military. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea.
South Korea's conclusion that North Korea is responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan also means it is unlikely that talks about the North's nuclear weapons program will resume anytime soon. North Korea has twice tested what is believed to be a nuclear weapon. During Kim's trip to China last month, China pushed for an early resumption of those talks, but South Korean officials said they will return to the table only after there is a full accounting for the Cheonan attack and a policy response.
The sinking -- and the reluctance of the South to respond with an in-kind attack -- is the latest example of the raw military intimidation that North Korea has practiced for decades. With 1.2 million troops on active duty, the Korean People's Army has positioned about 70 percent of its fighting forces and firepower within 60 miles of the border with the South.
Some analysts suggested that North Korea conducted the attack to avenge the apparent defeat of its navy last November, when a firefight with a South Korean naval vessel left a North Korean patrol boat in flames and one person dead.
David Straub, a former director of the State Department's Korea desk who is now at Stanford University, said that while the Cheonan's sinking was horrendous, it marked more of a return to "normal" behavior for North Korea than a new direction.
"We tend to look at this as shocking because things have been relatively quiet for a decade or two," he said. But North Korea killed 30 sailors aboard a South Korean warship in the 1970s; in 1983, its agents were believed to have been behind a fatal bombing in Rangoon, Burma, that narrowly missed then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan.
What has changed, Straub said, is the Western view of North Korea. In the past, North Korean misbehavior was often rewarded with Western attention and aid from Japan and South Korea. But after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, "opinion changed in a fundamental way," he said.
"Before, there was a tendency of government officials to say, 'Well, maybe if we try hard enough to persuade the North Koreans to give up the bomb, they will,' " he said. "Now the conclusion of most people, including in the Obama administration, is that they can't see the North Koreans giving up their nuclear weapons on terms that would be acceptable to anyone."
Domestically in South Korea, the sinking of the Cheonan may be a pivotal campaign issue in local elections on June 2. Opposition leaders have rejected allegations of North Korea's involvement in sinking the ship.
They accuse Lee's government of manipulating the incident to stir up anger and secure votes. The opposition Democratic Party, which supports peaceful coexistence and increased trade with the North, has created its own fact-finding committee on the ship's sinking and has announced that it will not accept the findings of investigators working with the South Korean government.
Lee's support among voters dropped sharply after the explosion that sank the warship. But his government's early restraint in making accusations against the North -- combined with an investigation that includes experts from around the world -- has brought Lee's approval ratings to near record highs.
Pomfret reported from Washington. Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
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