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WSJ: Standoff Over Ship Escalates in Koreas

By EVAN RAMSTAD

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704446704575205400833858626.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

SEOUL—South Korea's top military official said Sunday that a torpedo likely exploded under the South Korean patrol boat that sank a month ago near the maritime border with North Korea, bringing Seoul closer to declaring it was attacked by the North and hastening a delicate decision about what to do next.

The finding puts South Korea and its ally the U.S. in a bind in confronting the nuclear-armed totalitarian state. Seoul faces several constraints in penalizing Pyongyang, starting with the prospect that a military response could escalate into a war that very few here want.

The response could include seeking economic sanctions through the United Nations, a senior official in Seoul said, but the timing may be shaped by an approaching South Korean election and the process of rallying world support for penalties.

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young stopped just short of blaming North Korea for the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, but said "a heavy torpedo is the most likely cause."

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Associated Press
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Un-chan, center, comforts a family member of victims as Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, left, looks on during a memorial service for the deceased sailors from the sunken South Korean naval ship Cheonan.

The Cheonan sinking's lead investigator said his team had concluded that ship was torn apart by a "non-contact" explosion from a device that didn't touch the vessel itself. A salvage crew on Saturday recovered the ship's severed bow after raising the stern on April 15.

The statements marked a turning point in an investigation that has received saturation media coverage here. Government officials had already said privately that they strongly suspect the North is behind the sinking.

Seoul has largely insisted on waiting to make a final statement until the ship was recovered and analyzed, a process hampered by difficult weather and sea conditions. In the meantime, officials privately say, they are looking for concrete evidence to build a case to penalize Pyongyang.


South Korea has raised the last part of a naval ship that sank last month. The country's top military officials said a torpedo likely exploded under the ship.

A military response looks unlikely at this point. South Korea has stopped short of matching previous acts of aggression, from the 1987 explosion of a Korean Air jet near Myanmar to the July 2008 killing of a South Korean tourist at a North Korean resort by a North Korean soldier.

Though the public favors punishing the North, there is little appetite for warlike action that would disrupt the South Korean economy or destabilize the North enough to require the South to take it over.

President Lee Myung-bak said last week he has no intention of invading the North. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday called for calm.

A U.S. defense official said that while the Pentagon is involved in analyzing the wreckage, it was awaiting a formal South Korean determination of the sinking's cause before discussing any possible courses of action with Seoul. "We aren't running any hypotheticals here," said the U.S. official. "This is the South Korean government's decision."

Privately, U.S. officials acknowledged the findings will have major ramifications for U.S. policy in Asia. They worry that further escalations by the North could complicate an American foreign policy agenda dominated by the war in Afghanistan and international efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program.

North Korea has been angry with South Korea since the 2007 election of Mr. Lee, who ended 10 years of providing money to the North.

More broadly, North Korea has pushed forward the development of nuclear weapons and advanced missiles against the wishes of the South and the Obama administration.

It has chafed under stricter penalties imposed by the U.N. Security Council after a nuclear test last May, which have resulted in the seizure of weapons shipments that are a main source of cash for dictator Kim Jong Il's regime.

Many in South Korea speculate that the March 26 sinking may have been retaliation for a fire fight last November when South Korea's navy severely damaged a North Korean vessel and perhaps killed some of its sailors.

That skirmish occurred in the boundary area not far from where the Cheonan sunk. The North's dictator Mr. Kim visited the navy base of the damaged ship in February.

In another line of speculation, some analysts say Mr. Kim may have ordered the attack to show strength inside the country to help the potential succession of his son, Kim Jong Un.

Acts of Aggression

Some of North Korea's attempts against South Korea

Jan. 21, 1968: North Korean commandos reach presidential Blue House in Seoul and attempt to kill President Park Chung-hee. They fail, but kill two South Korean police and five civilians; 28 of the commandos are killed.

Oct. 9, 1983: North Korean agents bomb a meeting attended by President Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon, Burma, killing three members of his cabinet and 14 others in his entourage.

Nov. 29, 1987: Two North Korean spies place a time bomb on a Korean Air flight from Baghdad to Bangkok; it explodes over the Andaman Sea near Burma, killing 115.

June 16, 1999: North Korean warships accompany fishing boats across the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, leading to a 10-minute gunbattle that resulted in the sinking of a North Korean ship.

June 29, 2002: North Korean warships venture three miles south of the maritime border in the Yellow Sea and skirmish with two South Korean ships; six South Korean sailors are killed.

Nov. 10, 2009: A North Korean warship strays one mile south of the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, leading to a brief gunbattle with two South Korean ships.

WSJ Research

There's less evidence of this possibility, but when Mr. Kim was rising in power in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korean media attributed several military actions to him. His father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, was a war hero and resister of Japan's colonization of the Korean peninsula, which ended after World War II in 1945.

If North Korea is ultimately blamed, South Korean officials don't expect difficulty building public support to penalize it. North Korea's military has blamed South Korea for the Cheonan's sinking, though the North hasn't explicitly denied being involved.

Should the North be responsible, Seoul would likely ask the U.N. Security Council to create additional economic sanctions that would be binding on all nations, according to a high-ranking South Korean official.

Meanwhile, South Korea would likely end its own remaining economic activities with North Korea. The South Korean official noted that since Mr. Lee took office, Seoul has sharply reduced trade and investment with Pyongyang by tying such activities to a reduction of nuclear-weapons development in the North.

"We can cut the rest off," the official said, including closing a joint industrial park near the inter-Korean border where South Korean firms employ 40,000 North Koreans.

The government discussion is also influenced by the coming June 2 biennial election of South Korea's National Assembly.

Opposition lawmakers have focused on the military's shortcomings in handling the sinking, particularly a slowness early on to provide information.

Members of the ruling conservative party have emphasized the prospect of North Korean involvement and raised questions about the military's preparedness for surprise attacks.

A finding of Northern aggression might help politicians in the ruling party because it has long taken a harder line with Pyongyang than other parties. Uncertainty will allow politicians in opposition parties to continue criticizing the efficiency of the military and incumbent government.

Lawmakers suspended campaigning until after a Thursday funeral for the sailors, which will cap five days of national mourning that began Sunday. But they plan their own investigation of the sinking afterward with an eye toward finishing before the election.

The main probe is being conducted by 43 civilian and military experts, including some from the U.S., Australia and Sweden. The investigation's chief, Yoon Duk-yong, said Sunday said the damage to the 1,200-ton ship's hull makes it "highly likely that a noncontact explosion was the cause."

Metal fatigue was ruled out because the ship didn't break cleanly. Mr. Yoon promised further analysis.

There remains a chance the explosion was caused by a mine that South Korea or the U.S. planted along the countries' shared maritime border 40 years ago, when a nearby island was used as a radar station. Defense officials believe such mines were cleared long ago.

"People in the government are rather cautious until we come up with the decisive material that can verify what was the cause," says Park Chan-bong, a former negotiator with North Korea for the South Korean government who is now an adviser to the ruling Grand National Party. "Until then, I think it is rather rational to wait."

—Jay Solomon and Peter Spiegel in Washington contributed to this article.
Write to Evan Ramstad at [e-mail]