North Korea has said the United States was to blame for the weekend naval clash with South Korea and that Washington was seeking to ”drive a wedge” between the two Koreas.
A Pyongyang foreign ministry representative said Saturday’s skirmish erupted after South Korean warships intruded into the North’s territorial waters and opened fire at North Korean navy vessels.
South Korea said two North Korean patrol boats crossed the disputed sea frontier, known as the northern limit line (NLL), and one opened fire after ignoring warnings from the South Korean navy.
The battle in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of the Korean peninsula left four South Korean sailors dead, one missing and 19 wounded from a South Korean patrol boat that was hit and sunk.
The representative, quoted by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, noted that the NLL was not mentioned in the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and was drawn up by the US-led United Nations forces.
North Korea has declared its own sea border which runs several kilometres south of the NLL.
”The intrusion of many warships and fishing boats of the South side deep into the territorial waters of our side under the pretext of such (a) bogus line was a grave act of aggression,” the representative said.
He said the United States should be held responsible for such intrusions, noting that the United States commands allied South Korean forces together with some 37 000 US troops stationed in the South.
He said the NLL was ”the basic cause of the incident.”
”All facts clearly prove that the incident was orchestrated by the United States to drive a wedge between the North and South of Korea because it was displeased with the progress made in the inter-Korean relations and has put a brake on it from the outset,” he said.
”The issue of sovereignty is quite different from the issue of dialogue.
”We will in the future, too, not pardon anyone encroaching upon the sovereignty of the DPRK (North Korea) but take a decisive retaliatory step for self-defence by all means,” he said. – Sapa-AFP