South Korea vows retaliation for future North Korean provocation

SEOUL - South Korean President Lee Myung Bak warned Monday that his country would strongly retaliate to any future provocation from Pyongyang and condemned the Stalinist state’s shelling of a border island last week as “crime against humanity”.

In a televised speech, he apologised for the government’s subdued response to the Nov 23 attack, saying he felt responsible for the loss of South Korean lives and the property damage.

“A military attack on civilians is a crime against humanity strictly prohibited even during a war,” the Yonhap News Agency quoted Lee as saying.

North Korea Tuesday fired artillery shells on the Yonpyeong island in the Yellow Sea for more than one hour. Two South Korean marines and two civilians were killed and more than a dozen people injured.

It was one of the most severe clashes on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice.

“I can’t contain my anger over the North Korean regime’s cruelty that ignores even the lives of children,” Lee said. “(South Korea) will make North Korea pay the due price by all means for its provocation from now on.”

Lee Sunday rejected a proposal by China, Pyongyang’s main remaining ally, to revive stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons programme. North Korea walked out of the talks, which also include the US, Japan and Russia, in 2008.

Earlier this month, North Korea revealed that it had set up a uranium enrichment facility, raising further concerns over the military regime’s nuclear ambitions.