N. Korea says no retaliation over S. Korea drills

North Korea called South Korean artillery drills on a front-line island Monday a "reckless military provocation" but said it would not retaliate, backing away from earlier threats to strike back.

The North said after the 90-minute drills ended that it was holding its fire because Seoul had changed its firing zones.

The official Korean Central News Agency statement suggested that the North viewed Monday's drills differently from the ones that provoked it last month because South Korean shells landed farther south of the North's shores.

Last month's drills were followed by a North Korean shelling that killed two marines and two civilians, destroyed large parts of the island and sent tensions between the Koreas soaring.

The North claims the waters around Yeonpyeong as its territory, and during last month's artillery exchange, the North accused the South of firing artillery into its waters; the South said it fired shells southward, not toward the North.

The North on Monday, however, kept its rhetoric heated, saying will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and U.S. bases.

During its drills, South Korea launched fighter jets to deter attacks. It also evacuated hundreds of residents near its tense land border with the North and sent residents of islands near disputed waters into underground bunkers amid soaring fears of war.

Residents seek shelter

Residents, local officials and journalists on Yeonpyeong and four other islands were ordered to evacuate to underground shelters because of possible attacks by North Korea, Ongjin County government spokesman Won Ji-young said.

Hundreds of South Koreans living near the tense land border with North Korea were either evacuated to bomb shelters or taken to areas farther south ahead of the drills, local officials said.

On Yeonpyeong, residents filed into an underground shelter after authorities announced the drill and huddled on the floor as a South Korean soldier showed them how to use a gas mask, according to footage shot by Associated Press Television News.

"I feel the same as last Nov. 23, when North Korea fired artillery at us," said Oh Gui-nam, a 70-year-old island resident. "My emotions are all tangled up."

The Defence Ministry said the artillery drills involved several types of weapons, including K-9 self-propelled guns, ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters, according to his office.

Ahead of the drills, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday asked all South Koreans to be more united and vigilant about North Korea.

"The highest-level of national security comes from unity among the people," Lee said in a previously scheduled meeting with home affairs officials, according to Lee's office. North Korea provokes South Korea when "our public opinion is divided," Lee said.

The United Nations Security Council failed Sunday to agree on a statement to address rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States and other council members demanded that the council condemn North Korea for two deadly attacks this year that have helped send relations to their lowest point in decades. But diplomats said China strongly objected.

After eight hours of closed-door consultations Sunday, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who called the emergency council meeting, told reporters "we were not successful in bridging all the bridges."

Although some countries still need to consult capitals, Rice said "the gaps that remain are unlikely to be bridged."

Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a frequent unofficial envoy to North Korea and former U.S. ambassador to the UN, held meetings with top leaders in the foreign ministry and military during a four-day visit to Pyongyang. He called for maximum restraint.

Richardson said the North agreed to let UN inspectors visit the North's main nuclear complex to make sure it's not producing enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the New York Times, which accompanied Richardson to Pyongyang, reported.

The North expelled UN inspectors last year and recently showed a visiting American scientist a new, highly advanced uranium enrichment facility that could give it a second way to make atomic bombs, in addition to its plutonium programs.