ROK fires warning shots at DPRK boat
The navy of the Republic of Korea fired warning shots on Friday to end a brief incursion by a patrol boat from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea across the sensitive maritime border, Seoul's defense ministry said.
It was the first such boundary violation in four months and came ahead of Friday's opening ceremony in the ROK port city of Incheon of the Asian Games, in which the DPRK is participating.
The patrol boat went 0.5 nautical miles (about 900 meters) inside the ROK side of the disputed Yellow Sea waters controlled by the Baengnyeong Island shortly after midday, a defense ministry spokesman said, adding that the ship turned back six minutes after the ROK navy fired warning shots.
"One of our naval vessels gave a verbal warning by loudspeaker and then fired six warning rounds," the spokesman said.
Minutes later, the DPRK ship returned across the border, he added.
The maritime boundary, which was unilaterally drawn by the US-led United Nations forces after the 1950-53 Korean War, has been the scene of brief naval clashes.
Four years ago, the DPRK shelled an ROK island in the region, killing four people. Earlier this year, the two sides fired hundreds of artillery shells into each other's waters.
The Korean War ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty, and technically the ROK and the DPRK are still at war.
Yonhap quoted an unidentified military official as saying the DPRK patrol boat had crossed the border to secure an apparently unmanned barge that had drifted into ROK waters.
"It towed the barge back to the north," the official was quoted as saying.
Earlier this week, an ROK fisherman found a suspected DPRK drone in his net near an island close to the Yellow Sea border.
The wreckage, without wings, engine or camera, was recovered when it got caught in his net off Baengnyeong Island.
In March and April, the ROK retrieved crashed drones equipped with cameras in three different places, including Baengnyeong Island and the northern border.
AFP - Reuters
(China Daily 09/20/2014 page11)
