North Korea expresses regret at civilian deaths

SEOUL - North Korea Saturday expressed its regret at the civilian deaths from its shelling of a South Korean island earlier in the week, but then blamed the south for provoking the incident and accused it of using human shields.

In a comment via the state-run KCNA news agency, Pyongyang accused the south of using civilians as human shields on Yeonpyeong island and remarked on the reports of civilian deaths.

“If that is true, it is very regrettable, but the enemy should be held responsible for the incident as it took such inhuman action as creating ‘a human shield’ by deploying civilians around artillery positions and inside military facilities before the launch of the provocation,” North Korea said.

Pyongyang went on to blame the US as being the actual instigator of the incident, and again warned the US and South Korea against holding their joint naval manoeuvres Sunday.

The North Korean remarks came as South Korea was holding a funeral for two marines killed in the North Korean artillery barrage.

The ceremony at a military hospital in Seongnam on the southern outskirts of Seoul was broadcast nationwide and attended by 500 people, including Prime Minister Kim Hwang Sik, other top government officials, generals, politicians, foreign diplomats and civilians.

“We will pay back North Korea 100 times, 1,000 times, for atrociously killing and wounding our soldiers who were the pride of the marines,” marine commander Yoo Nak Jun said.

The marines and two civilians were killed Tuesday in the attack on Yeonpyeong island, 12 km from North Korea’s coast near the two countries’ disputed border in the Yellow Sea.

South Korea said the North began the attack, which Pyongyang denied. Its state media warned that the peninsula was on the “brink of war” and it was “getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire and blow up the bulwark of the enemies”.

Raising the tensions have been naval manoeuvres in the Yellow Sea by the US and South Korea scheduled to begin Sunday and continue through Wednesday.

Ten warships are to take part, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke with North Korean Ambassador Chi Jae Ryong in Beijing and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung Hwan by phone Friday, urging restraint and a quick resumption of talks so their disputes could be resolved through dialogue, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

Yang also spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Washington had urged China to pressure North Korea to curb its military aggression.

Meanwhile, the Yonhap News Agency reported that South Korea was considering classifying its neighbour as its “main enemy” for the first time in six years.

The term might be used in an upcoming defence white paper after the Yeonpyeong attack, Yonhap said, citing an unnamed South Korean defence official.

The attack also followed the March sinking of a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors. Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the attack, but the north denied its involvement.

The “main enemy” label was first used in the 1995 white paper after North Korea threatened to transform Seoul into a “sea of fire”. In 2004, it began referring to the North as a “direct military threat or existing military threat” as relations improved.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after a ceasefire, rather than a peace treaty, ended the 1950-53 Korean War.