n. Korea takes aim at South

North threatens to fire on neighbour’s ship after ‘provocation’

SEOUL: North Korea threatened to fire at South Korean warships if they cross into its waters, a day after the South’s navy fired warning shots to chase away two North Korean ships that briefly crossed a disputed western sea boundary.

In a statement released through state media, the General Staff of North Korea’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) called the South’s action a “reckless military provocation” meant to kill the chances for dialogue between the countries.

The KPA said the North Korean ships were unarmed and within the North’s sea territory when “many armed ships” from the South approached them and fired without warning.

The South had said one navy ship issued an audible warning before firing five rounds of warning shots to repel a North Korean military vessel and a fishing boat that briefly crossed into South Korea-controlled waters on Friday morning.

The KPA said it will directly fire without warning at South Korean warships if they intrude into the North’s waters by “even 0.001 millimetre”.

“This 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 KPA said about Friday’s incident.

Minor incidents are not unusual on the western sea boundary, which was drawn unilaterally by the American-led UN command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and which the North does not recognise.

However, the Koreas have also fought three bloody naval skirmishes in the area since 1999.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff released a statement saying that the country’s military followed proper procedures to chase away the North Korean ships and called the KPA’s claim of the response being a military provocation “ridiculous”.

Since North Korea held a rare ruling party congress earlier this month, it has been demanding the South accept its calls to resume talks after months of animosities touched off by Pyongyang’s nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch in February.

South Korea has rejected the overture, saying the North must show tangible commitment to nuclear disarmament first.

Spreading the word: South Korean and US activists releasing balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets at a field near the demilitarised zone at the border city of Paju.