S Korea says North will pay price

South Korea’s President Lee Myung Bak has warned North Korea against any further provocations, saying Pyongyang would “pay the price” for last week’s attack.

“I will make sure we make the North pay the price for any (future) provocations,” Lee said in a televised speech on Monday.

He described the North’s deadly shelling of the South’s Yeonpyeong island last Tuesday as “crime against humanity.”

“A military attack on civilians is a crime against humanity strictly prohibited even during a war,” the Yonhap News Agency quoted Lee as saying.

Lee has come under pressure to take a tougher line against Pyongyang.

The president also apologized for the government’s slow response to the shelling that left at least four people dead.

“I can’t help expressing my anger over the North Korean regime’s cruelty that ignores even the lives of children,” Lee said.

Tension remains high in the Korean peninsula as the US and South Korean naval forces are currently carrying out four days of joint military exercises.

The drills are led by American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington.

Pyongyang has called the war games “a grave provocation” which has brought the region to “the brink of war.”

Reports say Pyongyang has placed surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles on launch pads in the Yellow Sea.

On Sunday, the North’s sole major ally China called for an emergency meeting of the six countries involved in the Korea talks nearly 20 months after last negotiations broke off in April 2009.

Chinese officials said that the emergency meeting is not a proposal to resume the six-nation talks and it is just meant to diffuse current tensions.

The six-party talks bring together North and South Korea, host China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

“Although the proposed consultations do not mean the resumption of the six-party talks, we hope they will create conditions for their resumption,” said Wu Dawei, China’s special representative on Korean affairs.

“The members of the six-party talks are deeply concerned with the situation in the Korean Peninsula,” Wu said.