S. Korea requests U.N. action against N. Korea over ship

UNITED NATIONS — South Korea officially referred North Korea to the U.N. Security Council Friday over the sinking of a navy ship that killed 46 sailors, taking its strongest step ever toward making the communist North face international punishment.

South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Park In-kook handed over a letter to Mexico's U.N. Ambassador Claude Heller, the current Security Council president, asking for a response from the U.N.'s most powerful body to deter "any further provocations."

North Korea has steadfastly denied responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, and naval spokesman Col. Pak In Ho warned last month in comments to broadcaster AP Television News that any move to retaliate or punish Pyongyang would mean war.

Heller said he will circulate the letter to the 14 other council members and then initiate consultations "to give an appropriate answer to this request." He will talk to council members before setting a date for the first closed-door council discussion, Mexico's U.N. spokesman Marco Morales said.

Despite a history of being attacked by North Korea, Seoul has never taken Pyongyang to the Security Council for an inter-Korean provocation, indicating now that it wants to take the matter beyond the Korean peninsula.

In the letter, Park said an international investigation determined that the torpedo that sank the 1,200-ton South Korean corvette Cheonan in March was made in North Korea and that additional evidence pointed "overwhelmingly" to the conclusion that it was fired by a North Korean submarine.

He called the attack a violation of the U.N. Charter, the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War, and the 1992 North-South agreement on reconciliation, nonaggression and cooperation. The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.

"As such, the armed attack by North Korea constitutes a threat to the peace and security on the Korean peninsula and beyond," he said.

"My government requests that the Security Council duly consider this matter and respond in a manner appropriate to the gravity of North Korea's military provocation in order to deter recurrence of any further provocation by North Korea," Park said.

The letter was delivered hours after South Korea's president, in a hard-hitting speech bereft of diplomatic politeness, called North Korea a liar and a threat to northeast Asia. He called the ship attack "a military provocation" that also "undermines global peace."