People cannot but express disappointment at a statement by the U.N. Security Council president over the sinking of a South Korean warship. The statement adopted Friday stops short of rebuking Pyongyang for torpedoing the 1,200-ton Cheonan in the Yellow Sea on March 26, killing 46 sailors.
``The Security Council condemns the attack which led to the sinking of the Cheonan,'' the statement says, expressing ``deep concern." Regrettably, however, the Council has failed to name North Korea as the perpetrator. It is no exaggeration to say that the statement is pointless in both tone and substance.
The draft even mentions that the Council ``takes note of the responses from other relevant parties, including the DPRK, which has stated that it had nothing to do with the incident." (The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name for North Korea). Is the Council too cozy up to the world's last Stalinist country to use more strong words in holding it culpable for the tragedy?
The UNSC should have done more to send a clearer message to North Korea. It should also have taken a tougher stance against the North than the presidential statement. In May, an international probe team led by South Korea concluded that Pyongyang was responsible for the attack. The Seoul government took the case to the Council on June 4, seeking a UNSC resolution to impose new sanctions on the hostile North.
But, the South has met a backlash from the North's traditional allies, especially China which opposes explicit condemnation of the North. Beijing has also implicitly protested a planned South Korea-U.S. naval drill that is designed to boost the South's military preparedness to prevent a recurrence of such a provocation from the North.
From the beginning, it was not realistic for Seoul to seek a stronger step against Pyongyang at the Security Council. Now, South Korean diplomats have to be satisfied only with the adoption of the statement itself. However, they must have realized how difficult it was to muster tougher international condemnation for the North's military provocation.
The Cheonan case shows that Seoul has too narrow options both diplomatically and militarily. The South should learn a lesson from the incident to thwart any further hostile attempts from the North and settle peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The nation should continue its international publicity campaign to let people around the world have a better understanding of the North's hostility. It also needs to beef up its diplomatic capacity to better cope with unpredictable consequences to arise from the ever-escalating tensions in the inter-Korean ties.
The South is also required to strengthen bilateral cooperation with its allies, including the U.S., to ensure national defense and security. It is also important to find an exit from the Cheoan tragedy to ease tensions on the peninsula.