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DPRK patrol boat returns after warning shots from S.Korean military

Xinhua, February 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

A patrol boat of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which South Korea claimed had violated an inter-Korean sea boundary, returned north after the South Korean military fired warning shots, Seoul's defense ministry said on Monday.

The DPRK patrol ship violated the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at about 6:55 a.m. local time (2155 GMT Sunday) off South Korea's western border island of Socheong.

South Korea viewed the NLL as the de-facto inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea. The NLL was drawn up by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the end of Korean War (1950-1953). However, Pyongyang has not accepted the conception of NLL and insisted the sea border should be re-drawn further south.

South Korea's Navy issued warning broadcastings several times, but the DPRK boat continued to sail southbound across the disputed sea boundary, near which several inter-Korean bloody skirmishes occurred.

The DPRK boat returned back at around 7:15 a.m. after South Korea's Navy fired five warning shots into the water.

The border violation came a day after Pyongyang announced a successful launch of an observation satellite into orbit, in breach of UN Security Council resolutions that ban the DPRK from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The DPRK conducted what it claimed was its first H-bomb on Jan. 6, the fourth of its nuclear detonations. Endit