North Korea Seizes South Korean Ship
The New York Times reports on the latest provocation from North Korea:
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat in waters near their eastern sea border, the South Korean Coast Guard said Sunday, straining already high tensions between the two Koreas.
The 41-ton squidding boat was believed to have been detained after entering the North’s exclusive economic zone, where foreign fishing boats are banned, the coast guard said in a statement.
There was no immediate confirmation from North Korea that its forces had impounded the squidding vessel. But the North Korean government, angry over an ambitious South Korean naval exercise due to end Monday, had said it would respond with “strong physical retaliation” and had warned civilian vessels to stay clear of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
Four South Koreans and three Chinese crew members were on board the squidding vessel, identified as the Daeseung 55.
South Korea’s national news agency, Yonhap, quoting an unnamed coast guard official, said that the ship was being towed to Songjin, a port on the eastern coast of North Korea, for interrogation of the crew.
“Our government hopes for the safe return of our ship and crew according to international laws,” the coast guard’s statement said.
Inter-Korean relations have plunged to their lowest point in years since a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk in March, killing 46 sailors.
A South Korean investigation attributed the sinking to a North Korean torpedo. The North has denied responsibility and called the accusation a justification for warmongering by South Korea and its main ally, the United States.
As part of the aftermath of the Cheonan attack, the South Korean military has been conducting a major naval exercise off of the west coast of the divided peninsula involving 4,500 troops and more than two dozen ships.
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