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SEOUL : North Korea Monday warned South Korean ships to avoid the disputed Yellow Sea border area where a clash broke out last month, saying its coastal artillery would target the area in firing exercises.
The communist state's naval command, in a statement on official media, said the move came in response to "reckless military provocations" from the South.
Tensions have remained high off the west coast since a brief but intense gunfight on November 10 left a North Korean patrol boat in flames. There were deadly naval gunbattles there in 1999 and 2002.
The North refuses to accept the border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) which was drawn by United Nations forces after the 1950-53 war.
It demands the border be drawn further to the south and said Monday it would recognise only its own frontier line.
The North said waters near its maritime border have now been declared a "peacetime naval firing zone" for coastal and island artillery units.
"All fishing boats and warships are required to take security measures by themselves in that zone to protect themselves," it said.
The North has long been bitterly hostile to the conservative government which took office in Seoul in February 2008 and which scrapped a policy of near-unconditional aid. But relations had been improving recently.
Last Friday South Korea shipped swine flu medicine worth 15 million dollars to its impoverished neighbour, the first direct government aid for nearly two years.
On Monday Seoul said it may fund assistance projects by several international organisations for North Korean infants and children.
"The North's statement, tantamount to a warning, does not help reduce tension," said a spokesman for Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The military is taking necessary countermeasures," he said, without elaborating.
Yang Moo-Jin, a professor of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said any action by the North to enforce its declaration would create a "very grave situation".
The North's self-declared border runs much further south than the NLL, he said.
"The North's statement has a dual purpose -- not only to strengthen its demand for redrawing the NLL, but also to highlight the instability of the Korean peninsula to press for a peace treaty," Yang told AFP.
The North is pressing the United States to sign a treaty formally ending the 1950-53 war. Washington says this must wait until the North returns to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
It sent an envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to Pyongyang this month to try to persuade it to do so. Bosworth said the two sides had a "common understanding" on the need for the talks, but no date was set.
The hardline communist state quit the forum in April and staged a second nuclear test in May, attracting tougher United Nations sanctions.
On December 11 Thai officials, acting on a tip-off, seized a planeload of 35 tonnes of weapons in transit from North Korea.
The Wall Street Journal said Monday the final destination for the arms was to be Iran, citing a joint draft report by analysts at Chicago-based TransArms and the International Peace Information Service in Antwerp.
- AFP/vm
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