Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Sunday night marked one of the tensest moments for North and South Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War, and Gov. Bill Richardson was in the middle of it, urging restraint and claiming a series of concessions from the North.
Late Sunday (Mountain Standard Time), South Korea staged live-fire drills despite a threat from the North to respond with military force. The South launched fighter jets during the drills and evacuated hundreds of people from the border area. It promised to respond immediately to any military action by the North.
Earlier in the day, the U.N. Security Council met but failed to take any action or make any statement on the situation.
Enter Richardson, who has been in North Korea in an unofficial capacity to try to calm the situation. Moments before the South’s drills began – and as the world watched – he announced through CNN a series of concessions he said he had received from the North.
Most notably, Richardson said the North had agreed to allow U.N. nuclear inspectors back into the country and to sell 12,000 nuclear fuel rods – enough to make 5-6 nuclear weapons – to South Korea.
Richardson also said the North had agreed to consider his “proposal for a military commission between the United States, North Korea and South Korea,” CNN reported.
Shortly after that, the South’s drills started. A South Korean official was quoted as saying North Korea was once again trying to fool the international community with the promises it made to Richardson. The North has made plenty of promises in the past that it hasn’t kept.
Once the drills concluded, the South stayed on high alert, expecting a North Korean attack. But an attack never came.
The North eventually said it planned no response. The South’s drills, it said, were a “reckless military provocation”, but it claimed the South fired in a different direction than drills it held on the same island last month, so there was no need to retaliate.
The South Korean island is near disputed waters.
The South said it fired in the same direction as it did last month, when the North responded by shelling the island and killing four people.
‘We had positive results’
Whether the North keeps promises made to Richardson remains to be seen, and the South has plenty of reason to be skeptical. But Richardson’s presence may have given the North, which has a history of making apocalyptic threats, a way out of the tense situation without escalating things further.
“We had positive results,” Richardson was quoted by an Associated Press reporter as saying.
“Maybe we had a little impact,” The New York Times quoted Richardson as saying. The newspaper had a reporter accompanying the governor on his trip.
Richardson was scheduled to leave North Korea early this morning, but his flight was delayed. He plans to brief reporters when he arrives in Beijing.
Meanwhile, the top story on North Korean TV news, as this all played out, was a 30-second report that Richardson “conveyed a gift for (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il,” Voice of America’s Northeast Asia bureau chief tweeted.