North Korea Warns UN to Be Wary of False Evidence of Sinking

By Bomi Lim and Chris Dolmetsch

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea warned the United Nations to be wary of evidence that it said falsely accuses the country of torpedoing a South Korean warship, likening the case to the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Security Council risks being “misused” by the U.S. if takes up the North Korea case, the country’s foreign ministry said last night in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks it can occupy the Korean Peninsula just as it did Iraq with sheer lies,” the statement said.

The U.S. is joining South Korea in blaming North Korea for the March 26 incident that killed 46 sailors to “put China into an awkward position and keep hold on Japan and South Korea as its servants,” KCNA said.

The statement came as the leaders of South Korea, China and Japan are set to start today a two-day trilateral summit on the South Korean resort island of Jeju. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao avoided any reference yesterday to North Korea’s role in the sinking of the warship in his first public comments since arriving in Seoul for talks with President Lee Myung Bak.

South Korea wants China to accept findings that the North fired a torpedo that sank the 1,200-ton Cheonan. China holds veto powers in the UN Security Council, and its acquiescence will be needed to win a resolution condemning the North. Wen reiterated yesterday that China was still considering the evidence and said it won’t protect anyone found to be responsible for the attack.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and main political ally.

Joint Probe

China proposed to the U.S. a joint investigation with North and South Korea into the sinking, the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper reported, citing a diplomat it didn’t name. Russia plans to send its own team to South Korea for an independent assessment of the incident, which a South Korea-led team involving experts from the U.S., U.K., Australia and Sweden blamed on North Korea in a May 20 announcement in Seoul.

Russia also has veto power in the Security Council and participates in the stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program that is hosted by China and also includes the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

North Korean Major General Pak Rim Su said in Pyongyang yesterday that the international investigation into the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan was biased because it was supervised by the South Korean military and included the U.S., KCNA said in a separate report.

“The noisy racket of confrontation with the DPRK kicked up by the group over the sinking of Cheonan is nothing but an act of precipitating its self-destruction as it is an undisguised declaration of war against the DPRK,” Pak said, according to KCNA. DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is North Korea’s official name.

--With assistance from Saeromi Shin in Seoul. Editors: Ben Richardson.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net; Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.