North Korea's official media warned South Korea against taking "provocative actions" near the two countries' disputed border in the West Sea after Pyongyang test-fired a series of short-range missiles on Friday.
"The so-called Northern Limit Line (NLL) is meaningless to us.
We do not tolerate South Korean military ships' provocative actions in our territorial waters," the (North) Korean Central News Agency reported. The report came after North Korea test-fired several missiles from a ship in the West Sea earlier in the day. On Wednesday, the North also expelled all South Korean government officials from an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North in apparent protest of the Lee Myung-bak government's hard-line North Korea policy.
President Lee has made it clear he will reconsider the former administration's plan to establish a joint fishing zone and a special economic cooperation zone in and around the NLL as part of a series of inter-Korean rapprochement agreements signed by then President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in October last year.
The two Koreas held several meetings since October, but failed to agree on establishing a joint fishing area along the NLL, the de facto maritime border The North does not recognize the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by U.S.-led U.N. forces at the end of the Korean War in 1953, and insists on setting up the area south of the line.
South Korea wants the area to include waters on both sides of the NLL.
The area was the site of two bloody naval skirmishes between the Koreas in 1999 and 2002.
"South Korea's reckless military provocation in the West Sea raises tensions," the North's official media said. "It cannot help bring out military conflicts if South Korea remains firm in its will to keep the NLL," it said.
SEOUL, March 28 (Yonhap)
N. Korea warns S. Korea against 'provocative actions' near sea border |
