S. Korea severs nearly all ties with the North

SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak said on Monday that South Korea would drastically reduce trade with North Korea, restrict North Korean merchant ship use of South Korean sea lanes and call on the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking a South Korean warship two months ago.

“We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again,” Mr. Lee said in a nationally televised speech. “But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts.

“Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended,” he added.

Cutting off trade with North Korea is probably the strongest unilateral action the South can take against the impoverished North. South Korea imports $230 million worth of seafood and other products from the North a year. North Korea earns $50 million a year making clothes and carrying out other business deals with South Korean companies.

Mr. Lee also said that South Korea would block North Korean merchant ships from using South Korean waters off the southern coast. That would force the ships to detour and use more fuel.

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