LOC17:41
14:41 GMT
TOKYO, Nov 3 (KUNA) -- South Korea's Navy fired warning shots to drive away
a North Korean fishing vessel that crossed the tense maritime border in the
West Sea, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday, according to
the Korea Times.
"10 shots were fired as a warning after repeated loudspeaker broadcasts
ordered the North Korean vessel to retreat," the newspaper quoted a JCS
spokesman as saying. It was not clear why the vessel crossed the sea border,
known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL), in the early morning and why it
remained in southern waters for nearly two hours, the officer said. "The North
Korean boat returned north of the NLL as of 9:57 a.m. (0057 GMT), and there
have been no other unusual activities by the North's military," he added.
Ties between the two Koreas sank to their lowest level in decades after a
South Korean warship was torpedoed in the same area off the west coast in
March, killing 46 sailors. Seoul accuses the North for the attack but
Pyongyang denies it. North Korea disputes the sea border which was drawn up by
the United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The waters
off the west coast have been the scene of deadly naval skirmishes in the past
that have resulted in the deaths of sailors on both sides.
The Seoul government is bracing for any possible North Korean moves to
sabotage next week's Group of 20 summit of leading wealthy and developing
countries next week, the daily said.
The North has a track record of making provocations during times when world
attention is focused on Seoul. In 1987, a year before Seoul hosted the Summer
Olympics, North Korean agents planted a bomb on a South Korean plane, killing
all 115 people on board. In 2002, when South Korea jointly hosted soccer's
World Cup along with Japan, a North Korean naval boat sank a South Korean
patrol vessel near the sea border. (end)
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