UN body probes North Korea's possible truce violation

The United Nations Command (UNC) has launched an investigation into whether North Korea violated the Korean War armistice by sinking one of the South's naval ships, the UN body said yesterday.
North Korea denounced the probe as a "bogus mechanism."
On Thursday, the South announced the results of an investigation which concluded a North Korean submarine had in March fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan corvette, killing 46 sailors.
The UNC said in a statement it had convened a special team to review the findings of the investigation and to "determine the scope of the armistice violation" that occurred with the sinking of the Cheonan.
The team, which includes 11 countries -- Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, Sweden and Switzerland -- would report their findings to the United Nations, it added.
North Korea has denied the sinking accusation and said it is ready to tear up all agreements with the South, with which it remains technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.