NKorea accuses Seoul of provoking conflict

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL (AA) - North Korea warned Seoul against "ever-more dangerous military moves" Monday, as Pyongyang spoke out for the first time concerning South Korea's ongoing attempt to stop Chinese fishermen operating illegally off its west coast.

The South kicked off its unprecedented joint military crackdown with the U.N. Command on June 10 -- deploying no more than four patrol boats in the inter-Korean Han River estuary area as is required under the terms of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953.

South Korea's military has been on alert as the de facto western maritime border remains tense after numerous post-war sea battles -- Pyongyang does not officially recognize what the South calls the Northern Limit Line.

Trespassing Chinese vessels were spotted on more than 500 occasions during the first five months of the year, according to Seoul.

Officials in South Korea have grown suspicious that foreign operators may have paid the heavily sanctioned North to fish in its territory.

The neutral Han estuary is of particular interest for its crab stocks at this time of year, encouraging Chinese crews to risk arrest to enter the area before fleeing -- often back to North Korean waters.

Despite Seoul's advance notice of its crackdown, the North's state-run KCNA news agency claimed that South Korea is aiming to instigate a "military provocation."

A spokesperson from the South's defense ministry swiftly dismissed the accusation, insisting at a briefing "the operations of the military police in the estuary of the Han River are legitimate ones taken through legal processes under the armistice with an aim to regulate Chinese fishing boats."