Friday, October 1, 2010

Hankyoreh Claims North Korean Torpedo “Peace Offering”

Pyongyang's Seoul Peace Plan
South Korea’s outspoken left-wing newspaper, The Hankyoreh, has doggedly continued its denial of North Korea’s unprovoked sinking of the warship, Cheonan, by claiming that the torpedo used in the attack was actually intended as a peace offering by the North’s military regime. “This was clearly the first step in a program of arms reduction, and of course it’s important that – in the spirit of openness - this is verified by the South, so the North sent a torpedo into the south to prove their intent to gradually demilitarize. Unfortunately, a South Korean ship got in the way.” wrote the paper.

In August, says the newspaper, the North continued its attempt at reducing its cache of weapons by floating 150 mines down a flooded river which ran into the South, but this killed a Southern fisherman.

Despite the setbacks, the Hankyoreh expects the North to return to the disarmament process by delivering further military hardware to the South, possibly all at once in a so-called “grand peace gesture”.

Related Links
Pieces of the Cheonan puzzle
Military fails to propel a Cheonan lie
Kim Jong-Il Fan Club