Seoul’s top official in cross-border ties warned on Monday that recent territorial violations by North Korean fishing boats might be a deliberate ploy by Pyongyang to provoke South Korea.
Navy ships from South Korea on Friday fired warning shots at six North Korean fishing boats that crossed the disputed Yellow Sea border, in the latest in a series of similar incursions.
It was the first time for two years that South Korea has resorted to firing warning shots to push the fishing boats back.
None of the vessels were hit and they swiftly returned to their side of the western sea boundary. North Korea said any incursion was made by South Korea’s navy and threatened military retaliation.
“Too many ships are violating the border too many times to call them a mistake. That’s why we are paying closer attention,” Seoul’s Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik told reporters.
“I just hope that such unusual...(border) violation is not a planned provocation by the North,” he said.