North Korea has crossed the inter-Korean western maritime border four times this month alone, raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.
Patrol boats of the communist country violated the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea, three times last week, and once on Tuesday, according to the JCS data presented to Rep. Song Young-geun of the ruling Saenuri Party.
“On last Thursday and yesterday, the North Korean vessels retreated upon our warning messages. But its patrol boat that moved some 300 meters into our territorial waters last Friday was backed down only after our Navy fired warning shots twice,” a JCS officer said.
Between January and May this year, South Korea saw two cases of violations by North Korean vessels of the tense western sea border, once in April due to an engine failure and the other in May.
“They appear to have crossed the border while trying to clamp down on a growing number of fishing boats either of its own or from China,” the officer said, adding that the military has closely watched the movements and sternly dealt with any infiltration.
Pyongyang does not recognize the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War with the help of the overwhelming U.N. naval and air forces, and has demanded the line be drawn farther south. (Yonhap)
