N. Korea Denies Provoking Japan With Spy Ships

North Korea said Saturday that it had nothing to do with the incursion of two suspected spy ships in Japanese waters last week.

The intrusion triggered a tense pursuit by Japanese coast guard and military ships, which fired warning shots, the first since 1953. The unidentified vessels, disguised as fishing boats, fled to a North Korean port, Japanese officials said.

“We have no idea of the ‘mysterious ships,’ ” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying in a statement.

“At the present juncture, the loudmouthed ‘mysterious ships pursuit case’ cannot be construed otherwise than one more anti-[North Korea] fiction invented by the Japanese reactionary on purpose,” said the spokesman, who was not identified.

The spokesman accused Japan of fabricating the incident to rally parliamentary support for bills aimed at increasing Japan’s regional military role.

Japan considers North Korea its main security threat, especially since Pyongyang test-fired a rocket over Japan in August.

“To railroad the bills through the Diet [Japan’s parliament], the Japanese reactionaries needed one more shocking ‘incident,’ ” Pyongyang said in a dispatch monitored in Japan.

Later Saturday, in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi criticized the remarks.

“Just think about where the ships fled to,” Obuchi was quoted as saying by the Kyodo News Agency. “This is a matter of faith.”

Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic ties.

The ships, first spotted early Tuesday, were chased through Japanese waters for about 24 hours. Their refusal to halt led Japan to fire warning shots. It also provoked Japan’s Cabinet to approve sending in destroyers for their first such pursuit in the postwar era.

A confrontation was averted Wednesday when Japan called off the chase after the falsely marked ships reached international waters and headed toward North Korea.