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Pacific Stars And Stripes
August 30, 1999
Pg. 3

By Jim Lea, Stripes Osan Bureau Chief

North Korea says it will establish a new sea border with South Korea if the U.N. Command does not agree to rewrite the Korean War armistice to specifically designate the line.

North Korean Senior Col. Pak Rim Su said action will be considered after a meeting of North Korean army and U.N. Command generals, according to a report by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.

KCNA said the North has proposed that the next general officers meeting be held in early September. Pak is a North Korean army delegate to the general officers talks.

The sea border between the two Koreas was the focal point of a battle between South and North Korean military ships June 15. A North Korean torpedo boat was sunk and 30 North Korean sailors reportedly were killed in the incident.

South Korea says two of its patrol boats were damaged and seven South Korean sailors were wounded.

The sea border - called the Northern Limit Line - was not specifically designated in the 1953 armistice that ended battlefield hostilities in the Korean War. It was designated by the U.N. Command after the cease-fire was signed to mark the border separating South and North Korean territorial waters.

U.N. Command officials claim Pyongyang honored the line until the 1970s, when North Korean fishing boats and military craft guarding them began routinely violating the line. However, they moved quickly back into their own territorial waters when challenged by South Korean patrol boats in the area, command and South Korean military officials say.

The North's ships began refusing to return to their side of the line in early June. The situation escalated until June 15, when a South Korean patrol boat attempted to push a North Korean torpedo boat back across the line.

Each side accuses the other of opening fire first. The matter has been discussed at five general officers meetings, but no headway toward resolution has been made.

North Korean officers attending the meetings have insisted that the armistice be rewritten to include a clear definition of the line.

The U.N. Command has rejected that, saying the matter should be settled in negotiations held under the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression and Exchanges and Cooperation.

That document, called the "Basic Agreement," was negotiated and initialed by both Koreas in 1991 but has never been implemented.

Pyongyang has rejected the U.N. Command's position on the issue.

KCNA quoted Pak as saying that the "right of military control over waters of the (Yellow) Sea and naval forces resides with the Korean People's Army side and the U.S. Forces side according to the armistice."

He added that security "in the waters can be ensured only when it is handled by" those two sides.

Pak said that while the North "wishes to solve the issue through negotiations, (there is) a limit to our efforts to seek a peaceful negotiated settlement."