Vessel From North Is Ordered to Turn

A North Korean commercial vessel once again crossed the Northern Limit Line at about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, 35 miles east of the South Korean port of Jeojin off the coast of the East Sea (Sea of Japan).

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the Nampo II had changed direction at the order of the South Korean Navy and proceeded eastward five miles south of the de facto sea border between the two Koreas toward the outside of the naval operations zone.

The military office said the 2,400-ton ship was bound for Singapore with 1,200 tons of zinc and a crew of 33 on board. This is the seventh time in 12 days that a North Korean commercial vessel has either crossed the Northern Limit Line or intruded into South Korean waters.

At 1 p.m. Thursday, the Nampo II was sailing 152 miles east of Jeojin. It passed out of the naval operations zone around 8 p.m.

Seoul said when the line-crossings began last week that it would deal sternly with further intrusions of North Korean vessels, specifically mentioning the possible use of force.

An official at the Joint Chiefs explained that the basic idea behind the rules of confrontation outlined in the appendixes to the 1953 armistice agreement was to minimize military clashes between North and South Korea, and that the government intends not to use force if the North Koreans obey its warning.

At the National Assembly's National Defense Committee Thursday, an intense debate took place over whether a secret agreement to allow North Korean commercial vessels to sail through South Korean waters had been reached at the June 15 summit last year.

Representative Park Se-hwan of the opposition Grand National Party disclosed the transcript of the radio transmission between the North Korean ship that intruded into the Cheju Strait on June 2 and a South Korean naval vessel, in which the North Koreans said that sailing freely through north of Cheju Island was possible according to an agreement reached during the June 15 North-South Summit last year. The Defense Ministry flatly denied the existence of such an agreement.

by Kim Min-seok