Despite growing international pressure to cancel a live-fire artillery drill off the coast of North Korea, the South Korean military Sunday showed no signs of backing away from its planned exercise, which the North said could lead to 'catastrophe' on the Korean Peninsula. The joint chiefs of staff in Seoul said bad weather prevented the planned drill from being held over the weekend. Officials indicated that it was being scheduled for Monday or Tuesday. Russia and China have called on Seoul to cancel the drill, and Moscow requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday morning. A draft resolution by the council calls on 'all parties concerned to exercise maximum restraint and to avoid any steps which could cause a further escalation of tension in the Korean Peninsula and the entire region.' The council also is expected to ask Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to the region. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, met over the weekend with North Korean officials, including Maj. Gen. Pak Rim-su, in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Pak is a member of North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission and oversees the demilitarized zone and the armistice between the two Koreas. The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a full peace treaty. Richardson made two proposals: a military-to-military hot line and a military commission that would include the United States, South Korea and North Korea, to monitor crises like these in the Yellow Sea. A previous channel of communication, in the so-called truce village of Panmunjom, was severed this year as tensions grew over the sinking of a South Korean warship. The governments are now limited to leaving messages for each other at an unofficial office at a jointly operated industrial park inside North Korea. Richardson said that Pak was open to the suggestion of the military hot line and the commission, but that he did not accept them. 'Obviously this is a little bit of progress,' Richardson said. His trip was approved by the State Department, although he stressed that he was not an official administration envoy. Before meeting with Pak, Richardson said that, 'The fact that the U.N. Security Council is taking up the Korea issue is important because it will not only help to ease tension, but will also be able to provide cover for all sides not to take aggressive action.' He added, 'The fact that Russia has proposed the emergency action, and the fact that China has said that the situation is precarious means that North Korea's main allies on the Security Council are urging restraint.' North Korea said through its official news agency, KCNA, that it would retaliate if the South Korean drill went ahead and that it would strike the South with 'unpredictable self-defensive blows.' The principal North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinum, warned that the artillery drill would lead to 'brutal consequences beyond imagination,' in a commentary quoted by the South Korean news agency Yonhap. Richardson said North Korean leaders were 'very concerned about the artillery efforts.' When asked what North Korea would do if the exercises went forward, Richardson said Pak 'didn't answer directly, but I was very concerned with some of the statements that came forth.' But he added that Pak 'was not threatening.' 'He was not belligerent,' Richardson said. 'He was positive. He realized the gravity of the situation.' Seoul has said the exercise will be held on Yeonpyeong Island, near a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea. The island, which lies just eight miles off the North Korean coast, was the target of a North Korean artillery barrage on Nov. 23 that killed two South Korean marines and two civilians. The North said the shelling was a retaliation for South Korea's having fired into its waters. The South said the attack by the North was unprovoked. North Korea does not recognize the sea border, known as the Northern Limit Line. The waters off Yeonpyeong are North Korea's 'inviolable territorial waters,' the North said in a statement quoted by KCNA. 'They claim it's their territory,' Richardson said. About two dozen U.S. military personnel are expected to take part in the artillery drill, in support roles and as observers. The North said the Americans were being used as a 'human shield.' Pak also told Richardson that the remains of hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War were recently discovered in the North and that he hoped a joint recovery effort could resume. Analysts said Sunday that it was unclear if meteorology or diplomacy had delayed the drill. Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of political science at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said the South Korean government had failed to mount a strong response to the first North Korean shelling and thus had 'put itself in a bind.' 'Hence, the obfuscation about the drills,' Lee said. 'Were such military exercises so dependent on the vagaries of the wind and currents, how on earth would a sovereign state defend itself?' 