S. Korea patrol fires on N. Korean fishing vessel that crossed into territorial
waters
By Jim Lea, Stars and Stripes
South Korean patrol boats fired warning shots early Sunday at a North
Korean fishing boat that violated the South’s territorial waters in the Yellow Sea.
The incident — the most serious border infraction in the last
two years — occurred at 2:50 a.m. Sunday about three miles west of Paengnyong Island.
North Korean navy patrol boats in the area did not become involved in the confrontation, a
Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman said.
Three South Korean patrol boats ordered the North Korean vessel to
halt to be boarded and inspected, the spokesman said. The North Korean craft ignored the
order, and when one patrol boat moved to within 50 yards of the fishing boat, the North
Korean fishermen hurled torches and brandished knives and steel pipes, the spokesman said.
South Korean sailors fired nine warning shots with rifles, and the
North Korean vessel turned north, crossing back into its home waters at 5:27 a.m. No
injuries were reported.
Sunday’s incident came on the heels of several incursions by
several North Korean cargo ships into South Korean waters, which are rich crab fishing
grounds.
No warning shots were fired in the earlier incidents, prompting some
South Korean political groups to denounce the government’s handling of the incidents.
Following the earlier incidents, South Korea Defense Minister Kim
Dong-shin said the South Korean navy would use force to prevent further incursions.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Cho Yung-kil ordered the warning
shots to be fired in Sunday’s incident, the agency spokesman said.
The confrontation occurred in the same area where a June 1999 sea
battle left 30 North Korean sailors dead after South Korean patrol boats sank a torpedo
boat.
The area lies about 3 miles south of the Northern Limit Line, the sea
extension of the 151-mile-long Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula.
The line was established by the U.N. Command following the Korean
War.
After the 1999 sea battle, Pyongyang unilaterally redrew the line
well south of its original position and established navigation zones to the five South
Korean islands that lie only seven miles off North Korea’s western coast.
Sunday’s was the first hostile incident since the North drew the
new line.
A North Korean patrol boat did fire a warning shot at a South Korean
fishing boat May 27 after it ventured north of the original line to retrieve a fishing
net.
The U.N. Command declined comment on the incident
Bae Gi-chul contributed to this report.
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