Colonel Lee Boong-Woo, spokesman of South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a briefing on the live-fire exercise being undertaken on Yeonpyeong island, in Seoul on Monday. — AFP
Yeonpyeong Island, Dec 20
South Korea launched a live-fire military exercise on a border island today, despite North Korean threats of deadly retaliation, as UN diplomacy on the regional crisis broke down.
North Korea disputes the Yellow Sea border drawn by the United Nations forces after the 1950-53 Korean War. It claims the waters around Yeonpyeong as its own.
North Korea's military appears to be preparing for a counter-attack, removing covers from coastal artillery guns and forward-deploying some batteries, a military source said.
CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who is travelling with Richardson in Pyongyang, said there were signs of deal-making.
North Korea had agreed with Richardson, a former US ambassador to the UN, to let inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency go back to its Yongbyon nuclear facility, Blitzer said.
It had also agreed to allow fuel rods for enrichment of uranium to be shipped to an outside country, and to the creation of a military commission and hotline between two Koreas and the United States, Blitzer said. — AFP
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