Konstantin Vnukov, Russian ambassador to the ROK, said a team of Russian investigators who conducted a separate probe into the sinking are still analyzing data, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Russian experts began their investigation on May 31 to assess findings of the multinational probe that blamed an alleged DPRK torpedo attack for the sinking that killed 46 sailors.

Pyongyang has denied a role in the incident and claims the investigation results were fabricated.

The DPRK warned on Tuesday that its military will respond if the UN Security Council questions or condemns the country over the sinking.

The DPRK's UN Ambassador Sin Son-ho demanded an investigation team from the DPRK be permitted to go to the site to verify the result of an ROK probe "in an objective and scientific way," which the ROK has refused.

He said there is "a touch and go situation that a war may break out any time ... on the Korean Peninsula due to the reckless military maneuvers of the ROK."

Sin called the accusation against the DPRK "a farce concocted by the United States and the ROK in pursuit of their political purposes" and accused the ROK of fabricating the results.

The ambassador said Pyongyang wasn't accusing anyone of sinking the 1,200-ton Cheonan on March 26. He reiterated his government's claim that the corvette was grounded, noting that the area has "a lot of rocks." 

Asked if Pyongyang would rule out nuclear weapons in response to a Security Council action, Sin said: "Nuclear weapons are our deterrent because we are always threatened by outside forces."

At Monday's council meeting, a team of ROK military and intelligence officials and experts from the US, Australia, Britain, Sweden and Canada, explained evidence it said showed the Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo launched by a DPRK submarine, said co-chair Yoon Duk-yong.

"We identified the torpedo as a DPRK CHT02D on the basis of our recovered piece of that torpedo, which was the propulsion part including two propellers, a shaft, steering plates and a motor," he said.

Sin said that despite an extensive search by US and ROK warships, "a fishing boat suddenly appeared and claimed it had collected a remnant of a torpedo 1.5 meters long with a fishing net just five days before the release of the investigation on May 20."

The ambassador questioned how the remnants of a torpedo that split the warship could remain intact "without any deformation." He said if Pyongyang had launched an attack it wouldn't have left a mark on the torpedo in Korean script, and he said writing in a blue marker on the remnant could not have survived the heat from the explosion.

ROK officials said the torpedo did not hit the Cheonam but exploded three to six meters below the vessel, splitting it. The recovered section of the torpedo was from its rear propulsion and the area with the markings was preserved because it had a cover.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said investigators first tried sonar to find the torpedo but later used fishing boats with special nets.

Sin said that on the day of the sinking a US-ROK joint military exercise with many warships was in full swing in the area.

He said it was doubtful a small DPRK submarine attacked the Cheonan, which has anti-submarine capacity, "and it is also inconceivable that US and ROK warships equipped with state-of-the-art devices failed to detect the submarine."

Xinhua - Associated Press

(China Daily 06/17/2010 page23)