Clash Tests S. Korea’s Overtures

A dramatic confrontation between North and South Korean ships in disputed waters appears to have dealt another setback to reconciliation efforts here by President Kim Dae Jung.

Two South Korean navy warships fired nine warning shots Sunday to repel a 9-ton North Korean fishing boat in the Yellow Sea near the border, the South’s military command said Tuesday. Before fleeing, the fishermen fired flares and brandished sticks and knives at the patrol boats from 50 yards away to avoid being searched, the command said.

It was the worst confrontation since skirmishes in the same area in 1999, when the South Korean navy sank a North Korean torpedo boat with about 30 sailors aboard. All apparently died.

“The North’s intentions are clear,” said Lee Dong Bok, a former government official in the South. “They are increasing the ante. If they push us and we stay quiet and accept it, they then push us harder and harder for more concessions.”

Lee, who represented Seoul in negotiations with the North in the 1970s, accused the government of playing down a recent series of sea incursions to avoid having them undermine its engagement policy with the North.

After the 1950-53 Korean War, the U.N. command established a neutral zone in the Yellow Sea near the demilitarized zone that both countries’ ships avoided. However, since the late 1970s, the North has been sending fishing and naval boats there 20 to 30 times a year.

This year, there have been at least seven such North Korean incursions reported in the area.

Before Sunday’s clash, Kim had been criticized for failing to crack down on such incursions. Opposition lawmakers said he was trying to win the North’s support for the reconciliation program that he began after the two nations’ groundbreaking summit last year.