Reply #20: New war unlikely over sinking of S.Korean warship - Russian experts [View All]

17:5727/05/2010

Russian experts do not expect the sinking of a South Korean warship to provoke a new war and say the investigation into the incident has not been provided with enough evidence.


......."North Korea is locked in economic turmoil and is probably not eager for a military conflict. South Korea cannot do this either, but for different reasons," the head of the Russian Far East Institute's Center for Korean Studies, Alexander Zhebin, said at a RIA Novosti press conference on Thursday.

In case a military conflict arose on the Korean Peninsula, the South's troops would automatically come under U.S. command, according to an agreement between the two countries, he added.

"Therefore any serious conflict on the Korean Peninsula could be started only with the approval of the United States or on its own initiative," he said.

Another expert, the director of Moscow State University's International Center for Korean Studies, Pavel Leshakov, agreed with his colleague.

"There won't be a war, but shootouts could occur even though a ceasefire agreement exists ," Leshakov said, adding that the South and North are not on the brink of war as they were in 1994 when U.S. forces had worked out certain pinpoint strikes on North Korea.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100527/159184713.html