North and South Korea have exchanged “warning shots” off their western coasts, accusing each other of violating their maritime border amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s weapons tests.
South Korea’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to repel a North Korean merchant ship that crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border, around 3:40 am local time on Monday.
North Korea’s military said it fired 10 artillery warning shots into its territorial waters, where “the movement of the naval enemy was detected”.
It accused a South Korean naval vessel of interfering in North Korean waters under the pretext of striking an unidentified vessel.
“We ordered initial countermeasures to forcefully drive out the enemy warship by firing 10 multiple rocket shells near the waters where the enemy’s movement occurred,” the North Korean People’s Army said.
The JCS said North Korea’s artillery fire violated a 2018 inter-Korean agreement to reduce military hostilities and undermine stability on the Korean Peninsula.
There were no reports of clashes, but the poorly marked maritime border on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula is a source of long-standing hostilities between the two countries.