Top US military commander visits border islands near N. Korea

The top American military commander in South Korea paid a rare visit to front-line islands near the tense sea border with North Korea Friday, a trip seen as underscoring the U.S. security commitment to the South.

Gen. James Thurman, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, visited Yeonpyeong and nearby islands near the Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas amid heightened tensions following a series of border violations by North Korean boats.

Last month, the South's Navy fired a barrage of warning shots to chase away North Korean boats violating the maritime border, known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL). The waters around the border are rich fishing grounds.

The area has been the scene of bloody clashes between the two Koreas.

The two sides fought naval gunbattles in the area in 1999, 2002 and 2009. In 2010, the North torpedoed and sank a South Korean warship and shelled the island of Yeonpyeong. Fifty South Koreans, including two civilians, were killed in the two attacks.

North Korea has never recognized the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command when the 1950-53 Korean War ended. Pyongyang claims the NLL is an "illegal ghostlike line" and demands it be drawn further south.

The Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the divided Korean Peninsula still technically at war. The United States keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea to help deter North Korean aggression. (Yonhap)