By Ankit Panda
A North Korea patrol boat briefly trespassed into South Korea waters across the Northern Limit Line.
Tensions rose between North and South Korea amid a series of rare family reunions between families separated by the Korean War armistice when a North Korean patrol ship violated South Korea’s maritime border “several times Monday night.” According to Yonhap News, the ship retreated after receiving warnings from the South Korean military. The South Korean defense ministry confirmed that the South warned the patrol boat to retreat at least ten times.
Yonhap’s timeline places the incident as occurring late Monday night into Tuesday morning. The patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which demarcates an unofficial maritime frontier between the two Koreas, at around 10:46 p.m. Monday night, and eventually sailed deeper into South Korean waters. The ship ended up approximately 23 kilometers west of Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea.
South Korean defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said that ”The North Korean ship’s NLL violation is seen as part of military drills or an inspection of (the South Korean military).” He added that the South Korean defense ministry believes that the patrol boat “intended to test the South Korean military.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat