North Korean freighter breaches de facto sea border

North Korea

Published: 24 Oct. 2022, 18:52 Updated: 24 Oct. 2022, 18:59

North Korean freighter breaches de facto sea border

National Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup, left, and Gen. Kim Seung-kyum, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right, attend a parliamentary audit hearing on Monday at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, to answer questions about North Korean provocations and the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s North Korea policy. [NEWS1]

Seoul and Pyongyang exchanged warning shots in the Yellow Sea on Monday morning after a North Korean freighter crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) for nearly 40 minutes.

No casualties or damage were reported.

It was the first time Pyongyang breached the NLL since President Yoon Suk-yeol was sworn into office on May 10.

The NLL is a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea. While the South has patrolled the area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the North does not recognize it and insists that the line should be drawn further south.

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), a North Korean freight vessel called the Mupo crossed the NLL at around 3:42 a.m. on Monday, about 27 kilometers (16.8 miles) northwest of South Korea’s Baengnyeong Island.

It then sailed 3.3 kilometers south.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence believe the Mupo carried a Scud-C short-range ballistic missile to Syria in 1991 and is still controlled by the North Korean military.

A South Korean military official told local reporters that Seoul had been tracking the Mupo’s movement earlier Monday as it was heading towards the NLL and made several announcements warning the vessel not to come near the border.

It ignored the warnings, the military official said, and kept sailing south.

Military sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said a 2,800-ton Daegu-class frigate from the South was quickly dispatched to nearby waters, coming as close as within 1 kilometer from the North Korean vessel. South Korea's military fired about 20 warning shots with an M60 machine gun from the frigate.

The Mupo retreated and headed back north at about 4:20 a.m.

Once the Mupo was back in North Korean waters, the JCS said Pyongyang fired 10 artillery shots into a buffer zone in the Yellow Sea, reaching as close to 15 kilometers away from Baengnyeong Island and violating an inter-Korean military agreement signed on Sept. 19, 2018.

Later Monday morning, a statement that was released by an unnamed spokesperson for North Korea’s General Staff of the Korean People’s Army and carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency accused the South of “invading” the maritime border.

The North’s Army said it was sending a “grave warning” to enemy forces making naval intrusions.

North Korea’s provocations came less than a week after it fired nearly 350 artillery shots into the Yellow Sea maritime buffer zone last Tuesday and Wednesday.

North Korea experts believe Pyongyang stayed low-key over the past several days so as not to irk its closest ally, China, which held its 20th National Congress of the Communist Party. During the meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping secured a third term.

In response to North Korea’s latest threat, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said that the more Pyongyang heightens its threats, the more it will be isolated in the international community and the more “devastated” the lives of its people will become.

Yoon’s office said Seoul and Washington were monitoring the situation closely and preparing for all possible scenarios.

Military experts predict the North will carry out more threats this week as South Korea conducts a large-scale military exercise in the Yellow Sea. The exercise kicked off on Monday and is scheduled to last through Thursday, joined by the Korean Air Force, Coast Guard, Army as well as American troops.

A South Korean military official said the exercise was also planning to practice ways to respond to North Korean forces possibly attacking the South near the NLL.

From next Monday to Nov. 4, the South Korean and U.S. allies are scheduled to hold a large-scale combined military exercise involving nearly 240 warplanes from both countries. A local military source said Pyongyang is particularly sensitive about such aerial exercises, so much so that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un moves his office to an underground bunker.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN, KIM SANG-JIN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]