President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday convened an emergency meeting of security-related ministers to discuss countermeasures against North Korea's abrupt artillery attack on a South Korean island near the inter-Korean western sea border, presidential aides said.
Ahead of the arrival of Cabinet ministers at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, Lee was meeting with his senior secretaries over the North Korean provocations, according to the aides, Yonhap reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, North Korea reportedly fired about 50 artillery shells toward the South's Yeonpyeong Island, wounding at least four South Korean soldiers and destroying properties on the island in the Yellow Sea.
Cheong Wa Dae spokeswoman Kim Hee-jung told reporters that the Seoul government was now looking into the exact motive behind the North's sudden artillery attacks.
"Our Navy was conducting a maritime exercise near the western sea border today. North Korea has sent a letter of protest over the drill. We're examining a possible link between the written protest and the artillery attack," said Kim.