hankyoreh

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer

It has been revealed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff judged it a low possibility that a North Korean Yono-class submarine, which the Military-Civilian Joint Investigation Group (MCJIG) into the sinking of the Cheonan named as the vessel that sunk the South Korean warship, would infiltrate the West Sea as it was still undergoing trials prior to operational deployment.
During a parliamentary audit of the Defense Ministry on Friday, Grand National Party (GNP) Lawmaker Kim Dong-sung asked Defense Minister Kim Tae-young if it was true that at the time of the sinking, no order to be on guard for submarines was given because the Yono-class submarine, which had disappeared from its dock two days earlier, was not believed to be deployed as it was undergoing trials, meaning the possibility of an attack was low. Kim acknowledged that this was not incorrect. In an intelligence report on Feb. 8, the Join Chiefs of Staff reportedly judged that as of the end of last year, the Yono-class submarine was undergoing construction and fitting at a shipyard near Pyongyang.
Lawmaker Song Young-sun of the Future Hope Alliance said the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the Yono-class submarine that disappeared on March 26, the day of the sinking, was undergoing trials, and asked how a submarine undergoing trials could take on torpedoes on March 26 and attack the Cheonan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff did not order the 2nd Fleet to raise its anti-submarine readiness as it judged the submarine to be undergoing trials inside the harbor and the 2nd Fleet command judged nothing to be out of the ordinary.
Song also claimed that the Defense Ministry’s intelligence headquarters had erased the Yono-class submarine from its list of infiltration forces in its North Korean naval order of battle released April 27, one month after the sinking. When asked by Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker Ahn Gyu-back whether the Yono-class submarine was removed from the list of North Korea’s threat assets, former 2nd Fleet Commander Kim Dong-shik, who appeared as a witness, responded that this was the case.
Defense Minister Kim said in January and February, North Korean ports are frozen, so warships cannot leave. He said he understood that starting in March, when the ice melts, submarines should naturally be categorized as potential infiltration assets, but he would look into the exact details.

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