N Korea won't retaliate over live-fire drill -----------------------------------------------
The South has completed the artillery drill on the island shelled last month by North Korea. (AFP: Kim Jae-Hwan)
Story: Residents flee as Korea tensions rise North Korea's military said it would not fight back against South Korea's live-fire drill on a border island, accusing the "warmongers" in Seoul of deliberately stoking tensions.
The South has completed the artillery drill on the island shelled last month by North Korea, despite Pyongyang threatening merciless retaliation in response to the military exercise.
The drills began on Yeonpyeong Island about 2:30pm (local time) and lasted about an hour, with South Korean troops firing artillery and cannons.
Yonhap news agency said two destroyers were deployed in forward positions in the Yellow Sea.
"The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK (North Korea) did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation, like one taking revenge after facing a blow," the North's military supreme command said in a statement carried by the KCNA news agency.
It argued that the "US imperialists and the South Korean puppet military warmongers perpetrated such reckless military provocation" as Monday's 90-minute artillery exercise on the flashpoint island of Yeonpyeong.
"The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war," the statement concluded.
China has called for "maximum restraint" on the Korean peninsula, saying no-one had a right to "preach or promote conflict".
Beijing, North Korea's main ally, had earlier warned that any bloodshed on the Korean peninsula would be a "national tragedy", as tensions soared in the build-up to the drill.
"China always maintains that peace and stability must be maintained on the peninsula. This is a goal we have been working very hard to achieve all along," vice foreign minister Cui Tiankai told reporters.
"No-one has any right to preach or promote conflict or war, and no-one has any right to cause bloodshed between the peoples in the North and South of the peninsula," he said when asked to comment on the drill carried out by Seoul.
In his comments, delivered at a press conference following a meeting with Australian officials on human rights issues, Mr Cui neither directly criticised the South nor warned Beijing's ally Pyongyang against retaliation.
The Chinese official said dialogue was the only way forward to resolve the crisis sparked by the North's November 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong island, which left four people dead including two civilians.
"In recent weeks and months, we have had quite intensive diplomacy with the relevant parties related to the Korean peninsula," Mr Cui said.
"Whatever the differences and disputes relevant parties may have, they can only be addressed through dialogue and negotiation rather than by conflict or war."
In a subsequent statement, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called on all parties concerned to exercise "maximum restraint" and take a "responsible attitude" in order to keep the situation from escalating further.
A statement released by the Australian Defence Department says the live-fire drill was "a routine training activity conducted on Republic of Korean territory and within Republic of Korean territorial waters south of the Northern Limit Line.
"The Republic of Korea's military took all the usual and appropriate steps to advise North Korea of the exercise, and did not inflict any damage on North Korea or its territory.
"Australia has observed this exercise in its capacity as a contributing nation to the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC)."
US troubleshooter Bill Richardson, who was wrapping up a trip to Pyongyang as the drill was carried out, has described the situation on the peninsula as a "tinderbox" and urged North Korea to show "maximum restraint" over the drill.
In New York, China's deputy permanent envoy to the United Nations, Wang Min, told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that further bloodshed on the Korean peninsula would be a "national tragedy", Xinhua news agency reported.
Mr Wang said that "bloodshed and conflict would lead to a national tragedy of fratricide" between the two Koreas, damage regional stability and affect neighbouring countries, the report said.
The meeting at the UN failed to agree a statement on the crisis, and Russia warned that the international community was now left without "a game plan" to counter escalating tensions.
Diplomats said China had fended off Western demands that Pyongyang be publicly condemned for the deadly artillery assault on Yeonpyeong island.
They said Beijing had even rejected a proposed statement which did not mention North Korea or the name of Yeonpyeong.
