YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea – South Korea fired artillery in a 90-minute drill from a front-line island Monday and launched fighter jets to deter attacks after North Korea warned of catastrophic retaliation for the maneuvers.
There was no immediate sign of any North Korean military response during the drill, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing office rules. The South evacuated hundreds of residents near its tense land border with the North and sent residents of islands near disputed waters into underground bunkers amid soaring fears of war.
U.N. diplomats meeting in New York failed to find any solution to the crisis, but there was some sign of diplomacy Monday, as a high-profile American governmor announced what he said were two nuclear concessions from the North.
The live-fire exercises came nearly a month after the North responded to earlier maneuvers by shelling Yeonpyeong island, killing two marines and two civilians in its first attack targeting civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War. Pyongyang had said it would respond even more harshly to any new drills from the Yellow Sea island, though it added that its strikes would be "unpredictable."
The drills on Yeongpyeong, a tiny enclave of fishing communities and military bases about seven miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores, involved several types of weapons including the K-9 self-propelled guns, the Defense Ministry said. They were witnessed by members of the American-led U.N. Command that oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War.
The North considers waters around Yeonpyeong its own territory. Similar drills on Nov. 23 sparked the North's artillery barrage, after Pyongyang says the South ignored clear warnings to halt the firing.
Before the drills Monday, North Korea threatened again to retaliate, accusing South Korea and the United States of plotting the maneuvers to stage a northward invasion.
"South Korea must know how wretched the consequences it will face" by collaborating with the United States, Pyongyang's state-run Uriminzokkiri website said.
South Korea's military said ahead of Monday's planned drills that it would "immediately and sternly" deal with any provocation by the North. Fighter jets flew over South Korean airspace on a mission to deter North Korean attacks, a Defense Ministry official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
After the drills were over, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement vowing to bolster its military readiness to defend front-line islands and brace for possible attacks by North Korea.
Residents, local officials and journalists on Yeonpyeong and four other islands had been ordered to evacuate to underground shelters because of possible attacks by North Korea, Ongjin County government spokesman Won Ji-young said.
Hundreds of South Koreans living near the tense land border with North Korea were either evacuated to bomb shelters or taken to areas farther south ahead of the drills, local officials said.
On Yeonpyeong, residents filed into an underground shelter after authorities announced the drill and huddled on the floor as a South Korean soldier showed them how to use a gas mask, according to footage shot by Associated Press Television News.
"I feel the same as last Nov. 23, when North Korea fired artillery at us," said Oh Gui-nam, a 70-year-old island resident. "My emotions are all tangled up."
Ahead of the drills, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday asked all South Koreans to be more united and vigilant about North Korea.
"The highest-level of national security comes from unity among the people," Lee said in a previously scheduled meeting with home affairs officials, according to Lee's office. North Korea provokes South Korea when "our public opinion is divided," Lee said.
The U.N. Security Council failed Sunday to agree on a statement to address rising tensions.
The United States and others wanted the council to condemn North Korea for attacks that have helped send relations between the Koreas to their lowest point in decades. But diplomats said China, the North's major ally, strongly objected.
Several bloody naval skirmishes have occurred along the disputed western sea border between the two Koreas in recent years. The North does not recognize the U.N.-drawn sea border in the area.
In a diplomatic push, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a frequent unofficial envoy to North Korea and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., held meetings with top leaders in the foreign ministry and military during a four-day visit to Pyongyang. He called for maximum restraint.
Richardson said the North agreed to let U.N. inspectors visit the North's main nuclear complex to make sure it's not producing enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the New York Times, which accompanied Richardson to Pyongyang, reported.
The North expelled U.N. inspectors last year and recently showed a visiting American scientist a new, highly advanced uranium enrichment facility that could give it a second way to make atomic bombs, in addition to its plutonium programs. Richardson also said Pyongyang was willing to sell South Korea 12,000 plutonium fuel rods, the Times said.
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