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Salute: South Korean marines salute their fellow soldiers killed in a North Korean bombardment during a memorial service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea, Wednesday.
“Indonesia calls on both sides to immediately cease hostilities, exercise maximum restraint and avoid further escalation of tension,” he said.
Indonesia also underscores the importance of the immediate resumption of the Six Party Talks in order to address all aspects relating to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The barrage — the South fired back and sent a fighter jet to the area — was close to a disputed maritime border on the west of the divided peninsula and the scene of deadly clashes in the past. South Korea was conducting military drills in the area at the time but said it had not been firing at the North.
The attack came as the reclusive North, and its ally China, presses regional powers to return to negotiations on its nuclear weapons program and revelations at the weekend Pyongyang is fast developing another source of material to make atomic bombs.
It also follows moves by leader Kim Jong-il to make his youngest, but unproven son his heir apparent, leading some analysts to question whether the bombardment might in part have been an attempt to burnish the family’s image with the military.
“Houses and mountains are on fire and people are evacuating. You can’t see very well because of plumes of smoke,” a witness on the island told YTN Television before the shelling ended.
YTN said at least 200 North Korean shells hit Yeonpyeong, which lies off the west coast of the divided peninsula near a disputed maritime border. Most landed on a military base there.
Photographs from Yeonpyeong island, just 120 kilometers west of Seoul, showed columns of smoke rising from buildings. Two soldiers were killed in the attack, 17 wounded. Three civilians were also hurt.
News of the attack rattled global markets, already unsettled by Ireland’s debt woes and a shift to less risky assets.
Experts say North Korea’s Kim has for decades played a carefully calibrated game of provocation to squeeze concessions from the international community and impress his own military. The risk is that the leadership transition has upset this balance and that events spin out of control.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has pursued a hard line with the North since taking office nearly three years ago, said a response had to be firm following the attack.
North Korea said its wealthy neighbor started the fight. “Despite our repeated warnings, South Korea fired dozens of shells from 1 p.m. ... and we’ve taken strong military action immediately,” its KCNA news agency said in a brief statement.
South Korea said it had been conducting military drills in the area beforehand but had fired west, not north.
The international community was quick to express alarm at the sudden rise in tension in a region that is home to three of the world’s biggest economies — China, Japan and South Korea.
A French diplomatic source said the UN Security Council would call an emergency meeting in a day or two over North Korea, against which it has imposed heavy economic sanctions for previous nuclear and missile tests.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the escalation in tensions a “colossal danger”.
China was careful to avoid taking sides, calling on both Koreas to “do more to contribute to peace”.
“China hopes that the relevant parties will do more to contribute to peace and stability in the region ... it is imperative now to resume the Six Party Talks,” a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei said.1
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