Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea's president called on his military forces to use "action" and not talk to punish North Korea for deadly artillery attacks on Tuesday, but international diplomats appealed for restraint.
"The provocation this time can be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory. In particular, indiscriminate attacks on civilians are a grave matter," President Lee Myung-bak said at the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
"Enormous retaliation is going to be necessary to make North Korea incapable of provoking us again," Lee said.
"Given that North Korea maintains an offensive posture, I think the army, the navy and the air force should unite and retaliate against (the North's) provocation with multiple-fold firepower," he said.
Two South Korean marines were killed and 15 South Korean soldiers and civilians were wounded when the North fired about 100 rounds of artillery at Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, South Korea authorities said, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency. The attack also set houses and forests on fire on the island.
South Korea's military responded with more than 80 rounds of artillery and deployed fighter jets to counter the fire, defense officials said.
Firing between the two sides lasted for about an hour in the Yellow Sea, a longstanding flashpoint between the two Koreas. In March, a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk in the area with the loss of 46 lives in a suspected North Korean torpedo attack.
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