North and South Korea exchanged warning shots off the west coast on Monday, accusing each other of breaching their western maritime border amid heightened military tension, Trend reports citing Reuters.
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to see off a North Korean merchant vessel that crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto sea boundary, at around 3:40 a.m. (1840 GMT Sunday).
The North’s military said it fired 10 artillery shells after a South Korean navy ship violated the NLL and fired warning shots “on the pretext of tracking down an unidentified ship,” according to state media.
“We ordered initial countermeasures to strongly expel the enemy warship by firing 10 shells of multiple rocket launchers near the waters where the enemy movement occurred,” a spokesperson for the General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The JCS said it had conducted a “normal operation” over the border intrusion, and called the North’s move a “provocation” and a violation of a 2018 bilateral military pact banning “hostile acts” in the border areas.
“We once again urge North Korea to immediately cease consistent provocations and accusations which harm the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula as well as the international community,” the JCS said in a statement.
Source: TREND News Agency