SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Friday appointed a former top military commander as defense minister as tensions rise on the Korean peninsula before exercises with the U.S.
North Korea’s state-run media warned Friday in its characteristically bellicose language that the planned exercises next week could push the peninsula closer to “the brink of war.”
South Korea’s former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Kim Kwan-jin, 61, replaces KimTae-young, who quit amid criticism that the military’s response to a North Korean attack Tuesday on a disputed island was inadequate.
Kim Tae-young had offered to leave office in May, two months after the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, which claimed the lives of 46 sailors.
On Yeonpyeong Island, the target of Tuesday’s North Korean attack that killed four people, a garrison of South Korean marines remained on high alert, with officials saying they were on the lookout for a reaction from North Korea to this Sunday’s military exercise.
President Barack Obama sent the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the Yellow Sea for previously scheduled joint drills between Sunday and Wednesday. China’s Foreign Ministry warned Friday against having military exercises in the country’s “exclusive economic zone” without its authorization, Xinhua News Agency said.
“We hold a consistent and clear-cut stance on the issue,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement, according to Xinhua. “As the Korean peninsula situation is highly complicated and sensitive, all parties concerned should stay calm and exercise restraint.”
The Pentagon reiterated that the U.S. military notified the Chinese of the planned exercise, as it has in the past. The drill was among several announced after the sinking of the Cheonan.
“This exercise and the whole series of exercises is not directed at the Chinese,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman. “It’s designed to strengthen deterrence against North Korea.”
Washington keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect its ally. North Korea cites the U.S. presence as the main reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons.
North Korea on Tuesday shelled a South Korean fishing community and military base with highly flammable ammunition. The attack also blew the windows out of a school and torched houses.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been ratcheting higher since the sinking of the Cheonan. Lee’s government said it would strengthen the military and “more actively” retaliate against North Korean provocations after the attack on Yeonpyeong Island, the first shelling of South Korean soil since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea said it was responding to an encroachment on its territory and will “counter confrontation with confrontation andwar with war,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Multiple explosions, coming from the direction of North Korea, were heard on Yeonpyeong between noon and 3 p.m. Korean time Friday. They are believed to be part of the North’s regular artillery drills, a Defense Ministry official in Seoul said. No shell landed in South Korean territory, said the official, declining to be named because of military policy.
Army Gen. Walter Sharp, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, visited the island Friday and renewed calls on North Korea to refrain from additional attacks, according to an e-mailed statement from the United Nations Command.
Sharp, also commander of the U.N. Command, reiterated that North Korea’s military should agree to talks with the U.N. Command, the statement said.
Kim Kwan-jin, a former army general, served as South Korea’s top commander between 2006 and 2008. During his 40-year military career, he worked in key “strategy and field units,” Lee’s office said in the statement.
Lee accepted Kim Taeyoung’s resignation Thursday “in an attempt to restore the discipline of the military,” his office said in a statement. Lee will also replace his secretary of national defense, according to Thursday’s statement.
North Korea has sought to justify the shelling on what it termed South Korea’s “military provocation” in disputed waters. Kim Jong Il’s regime warned of more strikes if South Korea violates its territory in at least four statements this week via the official Korean Central News Agency.
Yeonpyeong lies about two miles from a border demarcated by the U.N. after the war and never accepted by the North. North Korea claims that the border should be drawn farther south to include Yeonpyeong and four neighboring islands as part of its territory. The Cheonan also sank in this disputed area.
South Koreans have begun to get their first look at the damage caused Tuesday to Yeonpyeong’s small fishing town from reports by South Korean journalists describing a scene of devastation with dozens of homes burned out or flattened by the hour-long attack.
Television footage showed streets in the island’s main fishing port deserted by all but stray dogs after most civilians had evacuated the island.
While the island bristles with artillery batteries and machine-gun nests, South Korean officials said its forces were unable to fully respond to Tuesday’s attack because they have been trained and equipped to thwart a North Korean amphibious assault, not fight off a prolonged artillery bombardment.
While a garrison did shoot back with 155mm cannons, officials in South Korea’s presidential Blue House said plans are afoot to reinforce the garrison with other types of heavy weaponry.
While Obama, Lee and Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan have urged China to use its influence to temper North Korean acts of aggression, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has reiterated calls for stability on the peninsula, without ascribing any blame to the North.
Hong told reporters in Beijing that it was evidentthat North and South Korea disagreed on which side started the clash.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan by telephone and directly to North Korea’s ambassador to China, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. Yang called on North Korea and South Korea to remain calm, exercise restraint and resolve the situation through dialogue, the ministry said on its website Friday.
China is the North Korean regime’s main economic and political benefactor, and the two countries fought together against U.N. forces during the Korean War.
South Korea, meanwhile, assured a meeting of the European Olympic Committees on Friday that it would be able to ensure security at the 2018 Winter Games if it’s picked. The Pyeongchang 2018 bid committee presented its case Friday in Belgrade, Serbia.
Information for this article was contributed by Bomi Lim, Jungming Hong, Sookyung Seo, Viola Gienger and Michael Forsythe of Bloomberg News; by Lee Jin-Man, Foster Klug, Christopher Bodeen, Kwang-tae Kim, Kelly Olsen and Jean H. Lee of The Associated Press; and by Martin Fackler and Su-Hyun Lee of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/27/2010