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The
South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it broadcast warnings
and fired warning shots to see off a North Korean merchant
vessel that crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto
sea boundary, at around 3:40 a.m. (1840 GMT Sunday).
The North's military said it fired 10 rocket artillery rounds
after a South Korean navy ship violated the sea border and fired
warning shots "on the pretext of tracking down an unidentified
ship," according to state media.
"We ordered initial countermeasures to strongly expel the enemy
warship," a spokesperson for the General Staff of the North's
Korean People's Army said, according to the official KCNA news
agency.
The JCS called the North's move a violation of a 2018 bilateral
military pact banning "hostile acts" in the border areas, and
urged it to cease "consistent provocations and accusations."
Since the 1990s, Pyongyang has been disputing the NLL, drawn up
at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, claiming it should lie far
to the south.
An official at South Korea's military said it had conducted a
"normal operation" regarding the border intrusion and rejects
the North's claim over the NLL.
The latest exchange of fire came amid simmering tensions, with
the North carrying out weapons tests at an unprecedented pace
this year.
In recent weeks, North Korea launched short-range ballistic
missiles and hundreds of artillery rounds off its east and west
coasts on several occasions in protest over the South's military
activities.
South Korea's troops kicked off their annual Hoguk defence
drills last week, designed to run until Oct. 28 and boost their
own and combined ability with the United States to counter the
North's nuclear and missile threats.
As part of the programme, South Korean naval forces said on
Monday that they would stage four-day exercises off the west
coast, bringing together about 20 warships, including their
Aegis-equipped destroyer and U.S. assets such as Apache attack
helicopters and A-10 strike aircraft.
Pyongyang has angrily reacted to the drills, calling them
provocations and threatening countermeasures. Seoul and
Washington say their exercises are defensive and aimed at
deterring the North.
(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi and Hyonhee Shin; editing by Diane
Craft, Stephen Coates and Gerry Doyle)
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