South Korea naval vessel fires warning shots to send back North ship: Officials
A South Korean naval vessel has fired warning shots to drive away a North Korean patrol ship that had crossed the disputed inter-Korean sea border, military officials say, raising fears of a potential conflagration between the two neighbors.
The North Korean ship crossed the southern part of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at 10:20 a.m. local time (0120 GMT), the South’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
The NLL represents a disputed maritime demarcation line between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea, which was drawn in 1953 by the United Nations (UN) following the end of the Korean War. It was also decided that the line should be defended by South Korea. North Korea, however, did not concur with the demarcation of the line.
“The North Korean boat sailed into… the sea boundary but retreated after our naval ship fired warning shots,” a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman told AFP.
It is still unclear whether the incursion was deliberate. Pyongyang sometimes sends patrol ships to its southern waters to track the boats fishing illegally near the sea border.
The Korean Peninsula has been grappling with a cycle of military rhetoric since the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953 and ended in an armistice. No peace agreement has been signed since then, meaning that Pyongyang and Seoul technically remain at war.
MSM/MKA
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