SEOUL: The South Korean navy fired warning shots yesterday to end a brief incursion by a North Korean patrol boat across the sensitive maritime border, Seoul’s defence ministry said.
It was the first such boundary violation in four months, and came ahead of yesterday’s opening ceremony of the Asian Games in the South Korean port city of Incheon, in which North Korea is participating.
The patrol boat came 0.5 nautical miles inside the South side of the disputed Yellow Sea border shortly after midday, a defence ministry spokesman said.
“One of our naval vessels gave a verbal warning by loudspeaker and then fired six warning rounds,” the spokesman said.
The North Korean ship returned across the border minutes later, he added.
The maritime boundary, which was unilaterally drawn by the US-led United Nations forces after the 1950-53 Korean War, was the scene of brief but bloody naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.
Yonhap quoted an unidentified military official as saying the North Korean patrol boat had crossed the border to secure an apparently unmanned barge that had drifted into South Korean waters. AFP
