(LEAD) N. Korean leader visits naval command

(ATTN: UPDATES lead, throughout with the navy command's alleged location, details on
skirmish, expert's view dismissing the connection)
By Kim Hyun

SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has visited a naval
command to boost morale, state media said Friday, on an inspection tour following
an inter-Korean skirmish along the Yellow Sea border earlier this month.
The Korean Central News Agency said Kim viewed the command of the Navy's
Component Unit 587 of the Korean People's Army and gave instructions to further
strengthen the country's naval force.
Typically, the report did not disclose the location of the military unit or the
date of Kim's visit. But the unit appears to be stationed in the southwestern
port of Nampo, based on a 2003 North Korean media report on Kim's visit to the
same unit that attached responses by a local official in Nampo.
"The navy holds significant value to our country, which is surrounded by three
seas," Kim was quoted by the report as saying. "Our socialist nation is an
impregnable fortress" with the naval soldiers protecting the seas, he said.
Kim later took photographs with the unit's sailors, the report said.
He was accompanied by the country's military top brass, including Kim Yong-chun,
minister of the People's Armed Forces and vice chairman of the National Defense
Commission, and Kim Jong-gak, first-vice director of the Korean People's Army
General Political Bureau.
The navies of the Koreas exchanged gunfire on Nov. 10 after a North Korean patrol
boat crossed the Northern Limit Line, the de facto border in the Yellow Sea.
No South Korean soldiers were wounded, but the North Korean boat retreated in
flames, possibly with casualties, according to the South's military authorities.
Baek Seung-joo, an analyst at the state-funded Korea Institute for Defense
Analyses in Seoul, said Kim's visit was a routine inspection, dismissing
speculation that it may be linked to the skirmish. It was his 144th public
activity this year and 41st among military-related ones.
"There is no reason for him to go there and order something like retaliation," he
said. "This is a routine activity to boost the navy's morale. For a strong
action, he would go secretly. Public inspections are not intended for that."
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)