The UN Security Council held emergency talks Sunday on the escalating showdown between the two Koreas as South Korea vowed to go ahead with a live-fire military exercise on a frontier island. US envoy Bill Richardson meanwhile put his own proposals to North Korea's military leadership in Pyongyang in a bid to ease the increasing hostility between the two sides.
"It's a very, very tense situation, a crisis situation," Richardson told CNN from Pyongyang. South Korea has said it will go ahead with a live fire exercise on Yeonpyeong island once bad weather lifts. North Korea, which shelled the island last month killing four people, has warned of "disaster" if the firing proceeds.
The North has boosted the combat readiness of its forces on the coast nearest to the planned drill, according to a Seoul government source quoted by the South's Yonhap news agency.
Russia, which demanded the special Security Council meeting, wants UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to both states to seek "urgent measures" to halt the latest crisis, diplomats said.
It made the call in a draft statement sent to the council's other 14 members, diplomats said. The draft statement called for "maximum restraint" by North and South Korea.
The Security Council negotiations looked set to become protracted as the Security Council has not yet managed to even release a statement on the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong on November 23 which set tensions spiralling. China has blocked any condemnation of the North.
"We are seriously concerned about possible further escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula," Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said Saturday.
"We believe that the Security Council must send a restraining signal to" South and North Korea, he added.
The foreign ministers of China and Russia held telephone talks Saturday and urged South Korea to cancel its military exercise.
"China firmly opposes any actions to cause tension and worsen the situation, and demands both sides on the peninsula show calmness and restraint," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said.
In Pyongyang, Richardson, governor of New Mexico and a veteran negotiator with the communist North, proposed that the two Koreas set up a military hotline to address border incidents, CNN reported.
He also lobbied for a military commission with members from North and South Korea plus the United States to monitor disputed areas in the Yellow Sea, which includes Yeonpyeong.
Richardson, an allys of President Barack Obama, spoke after meeting Major General Pak Rim Su, who leads North Korean forces on the tense border with the South. He described their talks as "very tough" but making "some progress".
Officially visiting in a private capacity, Richardson said he hoped the Security Council would issue a statement "urging all sides to exercise maximum restraint (and to) cool things down".
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