China is reported to have proposed a new investigation into the Cheonan incident, participated in by both Koreas, China, and the United States, a local daily reported on Saturday.
According to the vernacular Hankyoreh newspaper, China made the proposal through its U.N. mission in New York. It reported, citing a diplomatic source, who asked not to be named.
South Korea has yet to respond to the proposal, it said, but its immediate attitude was cautious because it believed that the offer could be misused by the North as an opportunity to voice its claim for innocence.
China's new proposal was partly a response to South Korea's earlier rejection of the North's offer to send its own investigators to the South to verify the South's accusations, it said.
The piece was bylined by three journalists of the newspaper, an apparent sign that the information was crosschecked.
No other major Korean-language newspapers carried the news, which, if verified, could potentially open a new direction in the Cheonan incident amid heightened inter-Korean tension since a team of multinational experts officially blamed North Korea for sinking the 1,200-ton South Korean navy ship in late March.