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Link to original post: [drupal=3373]South Korea and North Korea[/drupal]
First off, read this:
First off, read this:
BBC News said:US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the international community must respond in the growing crisis over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
She said there was "overwhelming" evidence that North Korea was to blame, and urged Pyongyang to halt its "policy of belligerence".
Mrs Clinton was speaking in South Korea at the end of an Asian tour.
North Korea denies it was responsible, and has warned of retaliation if action is taken against it.
After an international investigation produced proof that the ship, the Cheonan, was hit by a North Korean torpedo, South Korea announced a package of measures, including a halt to most trade. It is also seeking action via the United Nations Security Council.
The North then announced, late on Tuesday, that it was cutting all ties with the South. It has also banned South Korean ships and planes from its territory.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a joint news conference he and Mrs Clinton had agreed that North Korea should take responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, torpedoed on 26 March with the loss of 46 lives.
"This was an unacceptable provocation by North Korea and the international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond," Mrs Clinton said.
Continue reading the main story
Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent, BBC News website War rhetoric could end in dialogue Send us your comments
The incident required "a strong but measured response," she said.
Before going to Seoul, Mrs Clinton had two days of discussions in Beijing with her Chinese counterparts.
She has been pressing China to join the international condemnation but Beijing is taking a cautious line, calling for restraint.
"I believe that the Chinese understand the seriousness of this issue and are willing to listen to the concerns expressed by both South Korea and the United States," Mrs Clinton said on Wednesday.
"We expect to be working with China as we move forward in fashioning a response."
Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun earlier said his country was still evaluating information on the sinking of the Cheonan.
"We have always believed that dialogue is better than confrontation," he added.
Tank exercises
With tensions rising rapidly, the North has reacted angrily to trade and shipping sanctions announced by the South.
Korean propaganda fight How South Korean ship was sunk Q&A: Cheonan sinking Timeline: North Korean attacks
"If South Korea takes any provocative actions against us in terms of political, economic and military measures, backed by the United States, we will respond with war for justice," said the state-run KRT television channel.
"We will remove all the human trash from the Korean peninsula and build up a united Korea."
Pyongyang said on Wednesday it would cut off a road link across the heavily defended border if Seoul resumed propaganda broadcasts, halted six years ago.
Earlier, the North said it would match Southern sanctions with its own, and sever the few remaining lines of communication between the two governments.
South Korean ships and planes would be banned from Northern territorial waters and airspace.
All South Korean workers in the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park north of the border were expected to be expelled although they were allowed to enter on Wednesday, Reuters news agency reports.
Apart from Kaesong, there is little economic relationship left between the two states, their ties almost frozen since Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, the agency notes.
"North Korea is not closing up Kaesong immediately because it is saving the cards it needs in order to play the game," said Jang Cheol-hyeon, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy.
The two states are technically still at war after the Korean conflict ended without a peace treaty in 1953.
South Korean K1 tanks could be seen on Tuesday conducting an exercise to prepare for a possible surprise attack by North Korea.
BBC News said:North Korea has announced it will scrap an agreement aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes with South Korea, amid rising tensions over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
The move is in retaliation for Seoul blaming Pyongyang for a torpedo attack that sank the Cheonan in March.
The announcement comes as the South Korean navy conducts a major anti-submarine drill.
An international probe found the Cheonan was sunk by a Northern torpedo.
North Korea has denied the allegation.
In a statement on the North Korean official news agency on Thursday, the North Korean military said the country would "completely nullify the bilateral agreement that was concluded to prevent a contingent clash in the West Sea of Korea [Yellow Sea].
"In connection with this, [we] will completely stop using international maritime ultra-short wave walkie-talkies and will immediately cut off the communication line that was opened to handle an emergency situation."
It also warned of an immediate attack if the South's navy violated the disputed Yellow Sea borderline, and that it would consider a complete block on access to a joint industrial project in the North Korean city of Kaesong.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul says the announcement is another piece in the picture that is coming out of North Korea of increasing tension.
On Tuesday, North Korea announced it would sever all ties with the South.
It had also banned South Korean ships and planes from its territory - a measure it repeated in its Thursday statement.
South Korea will "resolutely" deal with the North's measures, a South Korean defence ministry official said without elaborating, according to the Associated Press news agency.
South Korea had already announced a package of measures, including a halt to most trade with North Korea. It is also seeking action via the United Nations Security Council.
The Yellow Sea was the site of deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.
South Korean drill
Thursday's announcement came hours after 10 South Korean warships took part in an anti-submarine drill.
The South Korean exercise is one of the first visible signs of a raising of South Korea's defence posture in response to the incident, our correspondent says.
With tensions rising rapidly, the North has reacted angrily to trade and shipping sanctions announced by the South.
The two states are technically still at war after the Korean conflict ended without a peace treaty in 1953.
BBC news said:"China objects to and condemns any act that destroys the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula," Mr Wen was quoted as saying after talks in Seoul.
South Korea has blamed the North for sinking the Cheonan with a torpedo.
Beijing is under pressure to take a strong stance against North Korea but so far has not accepted the findings of an independent investigation.
"The Chinese government will decide its position by objectively and fairly judging what is right and wrong about the incident while respecting the international probe and responses to it by each nation," said Mr Wen.
China has previously called for all sides to show restraint.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul says Beijing's refusal so far to condemn its old ally has been a major source of frustration to South Korea and President Lee Myung-bak.
But some in South Korea will see Mr Wen's comments as a sign of a subtle and careful shift in position by the Beijing authorities, says our correspondent.
A spokesman for Mr Lee said Seoul was "fully concentrating on diplomatic efforts to hold North Korea responsible" for the 26 March attack on the Cheonan, which left 46 sailors dead.
Sanctions
South Korea says an investigation involving international teams has uncovered indisputable evidence that North Korea fired a torpedo at the ship.
ANALYSIS
Continue reading the main story
John Sudworth
BBC News, Seoul
Wen Jiabao's comment buys Beijing a bit of time and prolongs the really difficult decision - choosing between its understandable desire not to provoke its prickly neighbour, and its need to be seen to be acting as a responsible global power.
The dilemma highlights, some observers say, a tension within China's ruling elite. For the old guard the ties with North Korea run deep, forged on the battlefield of the Korean War in which many Chinese lives were lost fighting on the northern side. For the new generation of leaders, China's growing relationship with South Korea is the way of the future, with two way trade now worth more than $150bn (£100bn) a year.
In the end, these younger voices may win out and North Korea may become to be seen, not as an ally but as a strategic liability. That would be a very bleak prospect for Pyongyang indeed.
Q&A: Inter-Korean crisis
Decoding North Korea's wrath
Investigators said they had discovered part of the torpedo on the sea floor which carried lettering that matched a North Korean design.
Seoul has announced a package of measures, including a halt to most trade with North Korea and is also seeking action via the United Nations Security Council.
Pyongyang, which fiercely denies the allegations, has retaliated by scrapping an agreement aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes with South Korea.
It also warned of an immediate attack if the South's navy violated the disputed Yellow Sea borderline - the site of deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.
On Tuesday, North Korea announced it would sever all ties with the South. It had also banned South Korean ships and planes from its territory.
Meanwhile, Japan has said it is tightening its already stringent sanctions against North Korea.
It said it was lowering the amount of cash which individuals can send to North Korea without declaring it from 10m yen (£110,000: £75,000) to 3m yen.
The parliament in Tokyo also passed a bill to enable the Japanese coastguard to inspect vessels on the high seas suspected of carrying North Korean weapons or nuclear technology, in line with a 2009 UN Security Council resolution.
The Associated Press news agency quoted the head of the Public Security Intelligence Agency as saying he had ordered officials to keep a closer eye on the some one million North Koreans living in Japan.
Thoughts? I am usually uncaring about politics, but this really pisses me the **** off. The world does not need a nuclear war and these countries are acting like a couple who hate each other.BBC News said:The proposed document includes a hotly debated proposal to ban nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
The 28-page Final Declaration is due to be brought up for consensus approval at the United Nations later.
If they do not reach agreement, the member nations may have to wait another five years to move forward.
The draft declaration calls for the United Nations secretary general to organise a meeting of Middle East states in 2012 to agree to the creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
Conference president Libran Cabactulan, of the Philippines, told a plenary session that the document was "the best that can be offered".
Proposal debated
Small groups at the UN debated the proposed declaration late into the night on Thursday, as the month-long UN nuclear conference entered its final hours.
One of the sticking points involves Israel, a non-member of the NPT, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons although it has never admitted to possessing them.
Arab states and Israel's allies have been at loggerheads over wording for the proposed nuclear-weapons-free zone.
Israel has said it backs a nuclear-weapons-free zone in principle, but only after peace agreements with all the countries in the region.
As the conference moved into the last stretch, Iran demanded that the official five nuclear-armed nations - the US, Russia, UK, France and China - agree to a timetable for negotiating a treaty to abolish their arsenals.
"The five nuclear-weapon states cannot easily and totally ignore this legitimate request. If so, then the conference will not be successful," said chief Iranian delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh.
Under the treaty, the five official nuclear weapons nations are committed to moving towards their elimination.
Iran has faced repeated questions over its own nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making weapons. Iran insists it is solely designed to meet its energy needs.
The NPT has encountered difficulty in coming up with the best method for monitoring suspect nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea.
The four nations suspected of having nuclear weapons that are not signatories to the treaty - India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel - are not covered by any NPT agreement reached.
The NPT conference, which meets every five years, risks losing credibility if no progress is made.
The last review conference, in 2005, failed to adopt a consensus declaration.
