N. Korea threatens to fire at any ship intruding into western sea border

SEOUL, May 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea again claimed the South Korean Navy's firing of warning shots at its vessels that trespassed into the de facto western maritime border as "a premeditated plot" to heighten inter-Korean tension on Saturday.

The North said it will open fire without warning at any South Korean warship that intrudes an inch into the sea border.

"The reckless military provocation was evidently prompted by a premeditated sinister plot to bedevil the North-South relations and further aggravate the tension on the Korean Peninsula," the General Staff of the North's Army said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

On Friday morning, a fishing boat and a patrol boat from North Korea violated the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, widely known as the Northern Limit Line. They returned to the northern side after the South Korean Navy fired five warning shots.

This marked the second time that a North Korean vessel crossed the western sea border since Pyongyang conducted its long-range missile test in February.

"From now on, we will open direct fire on any warship of the South Korean puppet forces without warning, if it intrudes into the extension of the Military Demarcation Line of our side even 0.001 mm in the hotspot of the west sea," said the statement.

It echoed one from the Supreme Command of the North Korean Army on Friday night that claimed that the South has made a military provocation by attacking its navy vessels.

sshim@yna.co.kr
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