Text Fwd: S. Korea to stage live-fire drill on border island shelled by N. Korea

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합참, 18~21일 연평도 해상사격 실시
"군사정전위 및 유엔사 회원국 대표들이 참관할 것"
2010년 12월 16일 (목) 15:58:08 조정훈 기자
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Korea Times
Military to resume live-fire drills in West Sea
Dec. 16, 2010
By Jung Sung-ki

South Korea plans to issue a navigation ban for the western waters off Yeonpyeong Island later this week for maritime live-fire drills, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced Thursday.

The move is expected to further ratchet up cross-border tensions after the North fired its artillery at the island Nov. 23 in response to the South’s firing drill near the border island. The artillery attack killed four South Koreans — two marines and two civilians — sparking outrage in the South.

As a result, Seoul has vowed retaliation, including air strikes, should Pyongyang attack again. The United States has also expressed support for this principle for self-defense.

“We will issue a navigation ban for the coastal area of Yeonpyeong between Dec. 18 and 21 for maritime live-fire drills,” JCS spokesman Col. Lee Bung-woo told reporters. “A detailed date for declaring the ban will be decided after taking weather conditions into account.”

The exercises will be held in the southwestern waters of the island, where South Korea’s marines had held exercises just before the North’s deadly shelling, he said.

“We’ll hold exercises at routine sites and with routine methods within our territory,” said Lee.

Members of the United Nations Command will observe the drills, he added.

The shelling of Yeonpyeong, one of the five islands in the volatile western waters, marked the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War that the North indiscriminately fired on South Korean territory and killed civilians.

The North has never recognized the West Sea border, the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which was drawn up by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the end of the Korean War.

It remains unclear whether the United States would support air strikes against the North, which could escalate the conflict on the peninsula into a full-scale war.
During peacetime, South Korean commanders are responsible for responding to North Korean provocations, but during a general war scenario, the top U.S. military officer in Seoul would assume control of South Korean troops and overall combat operations.
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Yonhap News
S. Korea to stage live-fire drill on border island shelled by N. Korea
2010/12/16

EXCERPT

Some 20 military personnel from the U.S. forces in South Korea will help South Korean troops in the one-day drill to be held between Saturday and Tuesday by providing medical, communications and intelligence support, officials said.

Members of the Military Armistice Commission of the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC), which supervises the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, will also observe the upcoming drill.

[..]

"It is normally scheduled by request of the United Nations Command for the areas being observed," Taylor said, adding that the UNC has observed the South Korean military's trainings on a regular basis and the "armistice agreement applies to all territory in Korea of land, sea and air."

[..]

To beef up defense on Yeonpyeong, which has a base for the marines, the JCS has deployed surface-to-air missiles, more K-9 self-propelled howitzers and 130-millimeter multiple-launch rocket systems.
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* Text informed from Rick Rozoff on Dec. 16, 2010
Top Military Commander: U.S., South Korea To Continue War Games
Stars and Stripes
December 15, 2010
By Ashley Rowland

SEOUL — The U.S. and South Korea will meet future North Korean attacks with the “utmost response” available that “the laws of land warfare permit,” the top U.S. military officer in the country said Wednesday night.

In some of his first public remarks since North Korea’s bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island on last month, U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Walter Sharp said the allies will plan more exercises to prepare for both limited assaults and full-scale attacks from the North.

“Though involving less loss of life than the attack on the Cheonan, the North’s attack on the northwest island (of Yeonpyeong) crossed significant thresholds and represented a worrying trend towards more frequent and more violent provocations,” Sharp said at a dinner for the East Asia Institute at the Shilla Hotel.

The Nov. 23 artillery assault killed four people and marked the North’s first attack on civilians since the Korean War. It was the second attack against the South this year: A North Korean torpedo sank the warship Cheonan in March, killing 46 sailors.

Sharp said the U.S. and South Korea must “find ways to change North Korea’s strategic calculus and end the cycle of provocation.”

“It’s difficult to determine exactly why North Korea engages in attacks and provocations,” he said. “but it’s likely a complex mix of motives and objectives are operating, including an effort to buttress regime legitimacy and a cohesion among the elites as well as shore up succession while addressing policy goals.”

Since the attack on Yeonpyeong, top U.S. officials have called for China to increase its pressure on North Korea to curtail its provocations and end its nuclear program. North Korea revealed a new uranium enrichment facility last month.

Sharp did not directly address the safety of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed on the peninsula, but touted the benefits of a slowly expanding tour normalization program that allows more servicemembers to bring their families to South Korea. U.S. troops have typically served one-year unaccompanied tours in South Korea, but approximately half of the troops will eventually be stationed there with their families on two- and three-year tours.

“There is no reason that families should not be here in Korea,” said Sharp, adding that North Korea’s attacks had strengthened rather than weakened the decades-old U.S.-South Korea military alliance.

Earlier in the day, U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens told the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea that “the United States stands firmly with the Republic of Korea,” and said the two countries had been working closely through military and diplomatic channels to develop plans to respond firmly to North Korean attacks.

In response to criticism from an audience member that the U.S. bears responsibility for the division of the peninsula, Stephens said it was her “deepest desire” to see the peaceful, democratic reunification of the two Koreas.

“It is a tragedy, I agree with you, that here in the 20th century we still have unfinished business, and that unfinished business is to achieve a Korean peninsula that is whole, free and at peace,” she said.
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