Anti-proliferation drill

Seoul tries to hold Pyongyang in check

A government plan to host an international anti-proliferation drill is part of measures to hold North Korea accountable for sinking a South Korean warship in the Yellow Sea on March 26. It is important to play an active role in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) as Pyongyang continues to defy the global initiative and deny its culpability in the torpedo attack on the 1,200-ton frigate Cheonan.

The Ministry of National Defense said Monday in a report to the National Assembly that it plans to hold the first drill in Busan and seas off the nation's largest port city in October. The ministry added it will seek to stage the exercise jointly with the United States, Japan, Australia and Singapore.

The PSI drill will be the first of its kind to be held in South Korea. The global anti-proliferation campaign made its debut in 2003 at the request of then-U.S. President George W. Bush to block the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The main target of the initiative is North Korea as the communist state has refused to stop its arms sales overseas.

In fact, Seoul had refrained from taking part in the PSI program to avoid deterioration in its ties with Pyongyang. But it became a full member of the PSI in May 2009, after the North test-fired long-range missiles and conducted the second nuclear explosion. And the North's sinking of the Cheonan has made the South strengthen international collaboration to deter Pyongyang's further provocation and its proliferation bids.

Last year alone, North Korea tried in vain to illegally export its weapons in six cases. Aside from the anti-proliferation campaign, the international community has been imposing stricter arms embargoes on Pyongyang under the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 since the North's nuclear experiment.

It is regrettable that the world's last Stalinist country has still refused to comply with the global ban on proliferation and return to the six-party denuclearization process. The North's defiance culminated in its underwater attack on the Cheonan. The brazen-faced North is now even threatening to wage a ``full-scale" war against the South if the latter seeks to add new U.N. sanctions against the former. How dare the perpetrator bully the victim into silence!

More worrisome is that Seoul now has only limited options to hold Pyongyang in check as China and Russia, the traditional allies of the North, are not willing to rebuke the assailant in the Security Council. For this reason, the South has to resort to such an indirect show of force as the global PSI drill.

Seoul also plans to join the Operational Experts Group of the PSI to expand its role in the anti-proliferation program. However, the North is expected to react to the South's move in a way to escalate tensions further. Therefore, Seoul should go all-out to preempt the North's additional provocation and minimize the fallout of the reviving specter of Cold War confrontations on the Korean Peninsula.