ID :
24065
Sun, 10/12/2008 - 21:15
Auther :

Seoul closely monitoring N. Korean moves in Yellow Sea: officials

SEOUL, Oct. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military authorities are paying close
attention to North Korean activities as tension is running high after Pyongyang's
recent military exercises near the western inter-Korean maritime border,
officials said Sunday.
The renewed tension comes as the North reportedly fired short-range missiles in
the Yellow Sea on Tuesday. Pyongyang later accused South Korean ships of
violating its territorial waters and warned that a clash could take place, an
argument that Seoul dismissed as groundless.
Seoul military sources also confirmed that the North's patrol boats engaged in
live ammunition and other military drills in September near the Northern Limit
Line (NLL), which serves as a virtual maritime border between the two countries.
"We are currently paying close attention to developments unfolding in the West
Sea," a Seoul military official said on condition of anonymity.
Pyongyang has in recent years demanded that the NLL, drawn by the U.S.-led United
Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, be scrapped in exchange for
a revised demarcation line that gives greater control over contested waters to
the North.
Seoul has rejected such demands and maintains that the NLL will remain the de
facto sea border. The South Korean Navy, which is much stronger than its northern
counterpart, has enforced the status quo, ejecting North Korean patrol boats that
stray south of the line.
North Korea's vessels have violated the NLL seven times so far this year,
compared with eight recorded throughout last year, according to military sources.
The two Koreas clashed twice in the Yellow Sea in 1999 and 2002, which cost the
lives of six sailors here.
The two have remained technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict ended in
an armistice, instead of a peace treaty.

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