S. Korea denies report of N. Korea crossing East Sea border

By Sam Kim
SEOUL, June 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korean defense officials denied a local media
report Thursday that a North Korean patrol boat recently crossed the border
between the divided countries in the East Sea.

"No North Korean vessel crossed the border, let alone approached it," a Ministry
of National Defense official said, asking not to be identified.
The mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported that a North Korean naval vessel veered
1.8 km into South Korean waters off the east coast on Tuesday afternoon.
The paper said the boat returned when the South Korean Navy radioed a warning
message near the Northern Limit Line, a de facto maritime border that also
divides the waters off the west coast.
"No warning was radioed," a Navy official said, also asking not to be named. "A
North Korean boat operated normally within its own designated operational
boundary."
North Korea has breached the NLL in the Yellow Sea three times this year amid
boiling tension between the two sides, which remain technically at war after the
1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.
North Korea has repeatedly warned of an armed conflict near the NLL in the west
where clashes turned deadly in 1999 and 2002. The North says the boundary should
be drawn farther south.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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