North Korea blames US for Cheonan warship sinking

North Korea said Wednesday the United States fabricated the story on the 2010 sinking of a South Korean naval ship in a bid to expand its influence in Northeast Asia.
The North's military unit at the truce village of Panmunjom issued what it called an indictment charging the US with cooking up the case.
"The US is the arch criminal that engineered the case by instigating the South Korean puppet forces," it claimed. "It was orchestrated by the US out of its sinister intention to hold control of South Korea and Japan, use them as a shock brigade in realizing its ambition for world domination and intensify the moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK after securing justification for an arms buildup in the region." The accusation came on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the sinking of the 1,200-ton vessel, the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, South Korea's news agency (Yonhap) reported.
The corvette was on a training mission near the disputed inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea.
Shortly after the sinking, the South's government launched an investigation, joined by international experts. It concluded that the Cheonan was hit by a torpedo from a North Korean submarine. Investigators said the North's responsibility is indisputable, citing evidence including some parts of a torpedo recovered in nearby waters.
Seoul slapped a set of economic sanctions on Pyongyang, undoing most of inter-Korean projects created by two summit deals in 2000 and 2007, respectively.
"The US scenario to abuse the warship sinking case for laying a siege for international sanctions against the DPRK was executed at an ever more serious phase," said the Panmunjom mission of the North's military.
It argued that the North had already expressed its willingness to support a "fair" probe into the Cheonan case but the US was uncooperative.
It called on Washington to admit its wrongdoings and offer an apology, though belatedly.