U.N. Command says Yeonpyeong shelling a 'planned attack'

U.N. Command says Yeonpyeong shelling a “planned attack” The United Nations Command in South Korea has concluded North Korea's attack on a South Korean border island last year was a planned provocation, dismissing the communist nation's claim the attack was part of a self-defensive measure, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.

   The UNC, overseeing the armistice between the divided Koreas since the end of 1950-53 Korean War, recently drew up a special report based on such findings and filed it with the United Nations.

   The United Nations, in turn, labeled the report an official document and circulated it among its member nations, according to the ministry.

   "The report is meaningful in that it is an official document that declared the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island was not only planned and intentional but that it was also a violation of the armistice based on investigation of the attacked area and other related information by the United Nations Command," a ministry official told reporters, asking not to be identified.

   Four people, including two civilians, died in the North's shelling of the island just south of the disputed border in the Yellow Sea on Nov. 23.

   North Korea maintains the attack was self-defensive, claiming it was first attacked by joint forces of South Korea and the United States, which has some 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea. (Yonhap News)