The Navy on Wednesday stopped a South Korean fishing boat as it approached the tensely guarded maritime border between the Koreas as it mistakenly took a route toward the North, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The Navy patrol ships spotted the 19-ton vessel with eight sailors on board as it was sailing in waters about six kilometers southeast of the Northern Limit Line ((NLL), the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas, at 10:20 a.m., and directed it to a nearby dock, a JCS official said.
"Had the boat sailed through the NLL towards the North, it could have been seized by North Korean patrol ships," the official said. "The Navy immediately identified the ship by radar and appropriately stopped it."
The ship, which had departed from South Jeolla Province, was heading for an island north of the western port city of Incheon, but it mistakenly took a route near the sea border.
The South Korean military has raised the alert status near the western sea border after a number of North Korean fishing boats were detected crossing the sea border last month near the crab-rich waters, and fired warning shots at North Korean vessels on Sept. 21.
The NLL has been the scene of several bloody skirmishes between the navies of the two Koreas. Most recently, tensions escalated after Pyongyang shelled the front-line island of Yeonpyeong near the border in November 2010, killing four South Koreans.
North Korea does not recognize the NLL, arguing it was unilaterally drawn by the U.S.-led United Nations forces at the conclusion of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. It has demanded a new border be drawn further south. (Yonhap)