Warships of the two Koreas exchange fire

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Warships of the two Koreas exchange fire

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South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, center in a suit, is flanked by military generals as he enters the office of the Liberty Forward Party in Seoul to brief lawmakers about the latest clash. By Kim Kyung-bin

The two Koreas yesterday engaged in their first naval clash on the west coast in seven years after a North Korean ship crossed the sea border. The damaged North Korean vessel was forced back, and Pyongyang demanded an apology from Seoul. No South Korean casualties or injuries were immediately reported.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said a North Korean patrol boat and a South Korean navy ship exchanged fire for about two minutes after the North’s ship crossed the Northern Limit Line at 11:27 a.m.

According to the JCS, the North vessel traveled 1.2 miles south of the border, about 6.3 miles east of a western island of Daecheong.

The South’s Navy issued two warnings before the North crossed the NLL and then three more later. The North’s ship ignored the warnings and continued southward. The South fired warning shots, though not directly at the North’s ship. The JCS said the North fired back directly at the South Korean ship, which then returned fire. According to military officials, the North’s vessel was damaged and returned north of the border on its own at 11:40 a.m. The South Korean Navy vessel took 15 shots for only minor damage.

Rear Admiral Lee Ki-sik, head of the intelligence and operations department at the JCS, said this was “a regrettable incident” in which the North directly targeted the South after the South’s warnings. “We take a great exception to this event and we urge North Korea to prevent a recurrence,” Lee said. He said that North Korea has crossed the NLL 22 times this year alone. This was the first time South Korea fired warning shots.

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In a statement issued on the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, the supreme military command in Pyongyang called the South Korean action “a grave armed provocation” and urged Seoul to “take a responsible measure against the recurrence of a similar provocation.”

The South Korean government scrambled to determine North Korean intentions behind the latest border violation. According to Blue House spokesman Park Sun-kyoo, President Lee Myung-bak was briefed on the situation around 11:45 a.m. and then called an emergency national security ministers meeting at 1:30 p.m.

Lee Dong-kwan, the president’s senior public affairs secretary, said the meeting lasted for about an hour, and the participants assessed details regarding the skirmish and its impact on inter-Korean relations.

“In order to prevent public uneasiness, the military must perfect its readiness,” President Lee was quoted as saying in his phone call to Defense Minister Kim Tae-young shortly after he was briefed. “We must calmly and resolutely address the situation in order to prevent it from worsening.”

The incident came just eight days before U.S. President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to South Korea for a summit with President Lee. The U.S. is also considering a possible bilateral meeting with North Korea over the nuclear standoff, with officials in Washington and South Korea saying an announcement of the decision to send a U.S. delegation to Pyongyang is imminent.

The North has had a tendency to raise tension prior to major events. Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said he believes North Korea may be trying to show that for all its apparent willingness to engage in multilateral talks, it can always return to a hostile stance.

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A file photo from the inter-Korean naval clash on the west coast in June 1999 shows the South Korean Navy boat Chamsuri, on the right, fighting a North Korean ship. The same vessel was used by the South Korean Navy yesterday in a skirmish against the North on the west coast. [JoongAng Ilbo]

“North Korea is assuming an aggressive stance to prove that they won’t back down,” he said.

Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korean studies professor at Korea University, said the North may believe raising tension “would help them up the ante and improve their bargaining power” at the negotiating table.

While Washington hesitated in sending officials to negotiate, the North has appeared impatient. Last Tuesday, it declared that it had successfully reprocessed spent fuel rods to generate more plutonium for atomic weapons. The United States has insisted that its goal was to persuade the North to return to the six-party talks for multilateral discussions on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang, on the other hand, wants to deal exclusively with Washington on the matter.

The two Koreas had twice before engaged in naval clashes near Yeonpyeong Island on the west coast. On June 15, 1999, North Korea first fired shots at the South Korean side, but ultimately lost 30 lives along with 10 vessels in just 14 minutes. No South Koreans were killed but nine were injured. In the second skirmish on June 29, 2002, six South Korean soldiers died and 18 were injured in a 25-minute battle. North Korea lost 13 soldiers, with 25 injured.

In September 1999, about three months after the first incident near Yeonpyeong, the North declared the NLL invalid as a sea border on the grounds that it was unilaterally established by U.S. forces after the end of the Korean War in 1953. The North made a similar declaration in March 2000 and then again last January.

In October, North Korea accused the South of frequently violating the NLL and warned that it would take military action if such moves continued. The North Korean Navy argued that Seoul had been carrying out “premeditated moves to deliberately escalate tension in the waters ... and deteriorate North-South relations once again.”

Seoul officials scoffed at the notion.

By Yoo Jee-ho, Ser Myo-ja [jeeho@joongang.co.kr]
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