South Korea fires warning shots to stop sea intrusion by North Korea boat

By Park Sae-jin Posted : May 27, 2016, 09:42 Updated : May 27, 2016, 09:42

[Yonhap News Photo]


A South Korean patrol ship fired warning shots Friday to chase away a North Korean patrol boat after it intruded across the sea border amid high cross-border tensions, military authorities said.

The North Korean boat sailed across the Yellow Sea border at 7:30 am (2230 GMT) and retreated after South Korea's navy fired five rounds of warnig shots from a 40-mm gun, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The intrusion, reported near South Korea's front-line Yeonpyeong island, appeard to be accidental as the North Korean boat followed a fishing vessel, it said. "Our side was put on high alert, but no additional provications have been reported," a JCS spokesman told Aju News.

Inter-Korean tensions have been high following North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile tests this year. South Korean troops have maintained a high vigilance to guard against any North Korean provocations along the heavily militarized border.

The two Koreas recognize different boundaries dividing their territorial waters in the Yellow Sea. The North argues that the demarcation recognized by the South -- the Northern Limit Line (NLL) -- is invalid because it was unilaterally drawn by US-led UN forces after the 1950-53 Korean War.

Because the Korean conflict ended with a ceasefire rather than a treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war. The maritime border has always been a flash point and was the scene of brief but bloody naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009. In November 2010, North Korea shelled a front-line island, killing four South Koreans and briefly triggering concerns of a full-scale conflict.

In February this year, a South Korean naval ship fired warning shots to stop an intrusion by a North Korean boat in the Yellow Sea. A month later North Korea fired a volley of short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast after the UN Security Council approved the toughest sanctions in decades against the nuclear-armed country in response to its recent nuclear and missile tests.

Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com 
 
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