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Shootout at sea erupts off Korean Peninsula
By Zhang Haizhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-11 08:08 Vessels from the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) exchanged gunfire yesterday for the first time in seven years.
Both sides claimed victory after the skirmish on the high seas. Each blamed the other for starting the shootout and both demanded an apology, AP and Reuters reported.
After the encounter, ROK military officials claimed the DPRK ship was heavily damaged before it retreated. The DPRK issued a statement blaming the ROK for "grave armed provocation". It said ROK ships crossed into the DPRK's territorial waters. Pyongyang said a group of ROK warships had opened fire on its vessel before fleeing after the DPRK patrol boat struck back with "a prompt retaliatory blow". The statement out of Pyongyang, which was carried on the official Korean Central News Agency, called on Seoul to apologize. Analysts from the ROK claimed that the DPRK was being provocative. However, observers dismissed the idea, pointing out that Pyongyang did not need to resort to such tactics after having conducted nuclear testing in May and several missile tests after that which would have got the attention the country wanted. In Seoul, the ROK's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that a DPRK patrol boat crossed the disputed western sea border at around 11:27 am (10:27 Beijing Time), drawing warning shots from an ROK navy vessel. The statement said the DPRK boat opened fire and the ROK ship returned shots before the DPRK vessel returned to its waters. The exchange of fire happened near the island of Daecheong, which is about 220 km from the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, the statement said. The clash erupted as United States officials said President Barack Obama had decided to send a special envoy to Pyongyang for rare direct talks about the country's nuclear weapons program. If the talks happen, they would be the first such negotiations since Obama took office in January. The DPRK and ROK have fought deadly skirmishes along the western sea border in the past - in 1999 and 2002. The number of DPRK casualties from past conflicts has not been made public. The ROK said none of its sailors were killed in 1999, but it said six died in the shootout in 2002. The US president is due in Seoul next week. ROK President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting after the incident, ordered his defense minister to strengthen military readiness. "It's a regrettable incident," said Commodore Lee Ki-sik in Seoul. "We are sternly protesting to North Korea (the DPRK) and urging it to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents." He said the shooting lasted for about two minutes, during which the ROK ship fired 50 rounds at the DPRK vessel some 3.2 km away. He said the military was investigating to try to find out whether the DPRK's alleged incursion was deliberate. ROK Prime Minister Chung Un-chan has, however, been quoted as saying he did not think it was. The two sides have not yet agreed on their sea border, more than 50 years after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice but without a permanent peace treaty. The current sea border was drawn by the then-commander of UN forces that had fought with the ROK. The line was drawn unilaterally at the end of the conflict. The DPRK last month claimed ROK warships had trespassed into its territorial waters off the west coast and warned that there could be a clash in the zone, which is a rich crab fishing ground. Baek Seung-joo, a DPRK expert at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the clash would not have a big impact on inter-Korean relations, according to the Associated Press. He said the two sides held a landmark summit in 2000 and the North sent a cheering squad to the South for the Asian Games in 2002. Both events took place after separate clashes in 1999 and 2002. "North Korea (the DPRK) is taking this aggressive stance to show they're not backing down on their security," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the ROK's University of North Korean Studies. Such saber-rattling is often seen by analysts as a way for the DPRK to increase its leverage during negotiations, Reuters said. But Wang Fan, a Korean studies expert at China Foreign Affairs University, said Pyongyang would not resort to such a tactic after having made a large splash earlier this year with nuclear tests and missile test-firing. Pang Zhongying, an international relations expert at Renmin University of China, said the encounter might just as well have been a tactic from Seoul to encourage Washington to put pressure on Pyongyang. "Maybe the ROK is using the skirmish to make the US take a tougher stand toward the DPRK, as Seoul does not like to see Washington and Pyongyang get too close," Pang said. |
