DPRK responds to shots from South Korea: Reports
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The DPRK reveals the shooting of warning shots came in response to a South Korean warship that crossed the maritime border between the two.
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A TV screen in Seoul shows an image of a South Korean navy vessel as its military fired warning shots at a DPRK ship before dawn on Monday. (AP)
Media outlets reported that the DPRK fired several warning shots at a South Korean warship that crossed the northern boundary (NLL).
According to the South Korean Yonhap news agency, a DPRK commercial vessel was the first to cross the sea border at 3:42 am local time on Monday (18:42 GMT on Sunday). Meanwhile, the DPRK military said a South Korean warship crossed the western sea border at the same time.
"We once again sternly warned to enemies that staged maritime provocations on top of the firing of artillery shots and cross-border loudspeaker broadcasts," a spokesperson for the Korean People's Army (KPA) General Staff said in a statement quoted by Yonhap on Monday.
The DPRK military fired 10 warning shots at a South Korean boat that was 2.5-5 kilometers outside the maritime border (1.5-3 miles), according to Yonhap.
Read next: DPRK fires artillery into buffer area: South Korea
On its part, Pyongyang's Korean People's Army (KPA) revealed that a South Korean military vessel had invaded the de facto border by 2.5 to 5 kilometers (1.5 to 3 miles) a few minutes after and that the Korean People's Army (KPA) fired 10 warning shots from the country's west coast.
KPA "coastal defense units on the western front... took an initial countermeasure to powerfully expel the enemy warship by firing 10 shells of multiple rocket launchers toward the territorial waters, where the naval enemy movement was detected, at 5:15," a KPA General Staff spokesperson said in a statement.
"The KPA General Staff once again sends a grave warning to the enemies who made (a) naval intrusion in the wake of such provocations as the recent artillery firing and loudspeaker broadcasting," he said.
The DPRK has fired multiple artillery barrages this month into a maritime "buffer zone" that was set up in 2018 as a way to reduce tensions between the two countries.
The maneuvers are part of the DPRK's remarkable escalation this year in what Seoul terms "provocations", including its longest-ever missile launch by distance, which overflew Japan and triggered unusual evacuation warnings.
