In a major diplomatic counter move by China, Defense ministers from China and South Korea plan to discuss military cooperation and security issues, amid high tensions between the two Koreas following an exchange of artillery fire at a border island. "The two will largely discuss how to further revitalize military cooperation between the two countries, but they will also discuss regional security issues like the North's attack on the Cheonan warship and bombing on the Yeonpyeong Island", Said a South Korean defense ministry official, quoted Sunday by the country's Yonhap news agency.
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Chinese defense minister Liang Guanglie |
The "informed official" who declined to be identified added that South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie will also review a host of other issues in the Chinese capital city of Beijing in February 2011. Seoul has accused Pyongyang for torpedoing a South Korean warship and the death of 46 sailors in March. North Koreans, however, have fiercely denied the allegation. Tensions have climbed to their highest level in decades on the divided Korean Peninsula after the North allegedly shelled a South Korean island last month, leaving four South Koreans dead.
China, North Korea's major military and economic partner, has come under mounting diplomatic squeeze in order to exert more pressure on Pyongyang to curb its military provocations. Pyongyang insists that its recent shelling of the island was retaliation for a South Korean firing drill that dropped shells into North Korean territory. Earlier this week, Seoul and Pyongyang again traded strong rhetoric. The North threatened a "holy war" against the South, whose military had been holding live-fire drills near the border. In response, the South warned of a "powerful response" to any attack from the North.
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