Russian initiative to stop South Korean military exercise fails

A Russian effort at the U.N. to pressure South Korea to halt plans to launch military exercises in the coming days collapsed yesterday after the 15 nation-council failed to reach agreement on a Russian draft statement urging North and South Korea to exercise restraint.

The council met behind closed doors in an emergency session for more than eight hours Sunday to debate the Russian proposal, which also called on the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a special envoy to travel to the region in an effort to ease tensions between the two sides. The council also received a briefing from representatives of the two Koreas.

The United States, which has the presidency of the council this month, insisted that any statement include a clear-cut condemnation of North Korea’s November 23 attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which left four South Korean nationals dead, and mention North Korea’s torpedoing of the South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan.  The U.S. defended South Korea’s right to carry out its live-fire artillery exercises. U.S. officials said that China had blocked any language condemning North Korea, or allowed even a mention of the island.

South Korea "has every need and right to ready its self-defense, having lost 50 of its citizens in the last 9 months" as a result of North Korean attacks, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said after the meeting. Rice said the U.S. was open to the possibility of a diplomatic role for the U.N. secretary general, but that it was unlikely the council would reach agreement on any statement on the crisis.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vitaly I. Churkin said that he had made a personal appeal during the meeting to the South Korean delegation "to refrain from conducting the [military] exercise at this particular time." He also expressed frustration that the council was unable to reach agreement on a statement that sent the same message. "We reiterated our calls for restrain on both parties, in no uncertain times," he said. "We were not successful in bridging all the bridges."

Churkin voiced "regret" that the United States had declined to schedule the emergency meeting for Saturday, thereby providing the council with more time to debate the Korean crisis. He said he would continue to press for a UN mediation role, noting that there was no diplomatic strategy for easing tensions between the two sides. The Russian proposal, to appoint a special U.N. envoy, "did receive considerable support, strong support from a number of members of the Security Council. I hope this idea can be pursued because there are serious political tensions and no game plan on the diplomatic side."

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