SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
North Korea warns Seoul's navy over search for dead official
Seoul, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2020
North Korea on Sunday warned the South Korean navy to stop crossing into its territorial waters as ships search for the body of a Seoul official shot dead at sea by Pyongyang's soldiers.

State media said the North will begin its own search for the body and warned that the South's naval operations threatened to raise tensions.

The fisheries official was shot dead by North Korean soldiers on Tuesday -- the first killing of a South Korean civilian by Pyongyang's forces in a decade -- prompting a rare public apology from leader Kim Jong Un.

Seoul's military has accused the North Korean soldiers of pouring oil over the man's body and burning it after shooting him.

The death was an "awful case which should not have happened", the North's official KCNA news agency said Sunday, adding that Pyongyang was organising a search operation in its waters to help locate the body.

It said the country was considering "procedures and ways of handing over any tide-brought corpse to the south side ... in case we find it during the operation".

But it warned that South Korean vessels near the site of the incident had crossed into North Korean waters.

"We can never overlook any intrusion into our territorial waters and we seriously warn the south side against it," KCNA said.

"It arouses our due vigilance as it may lead to another awful incident."

South Korea on Saturday demanded the North carry out a further probe into the shooting and said it would request a joint investigation if necessary.

Apologies from North Korea are unusual and the message from Kim came with inter-Korean ties in a deep freeze and nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington deadlocked.

There have been no North Korean media reports on the contents of the letter from Kim.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Intelligent Control System Enhances Space Reactor Performance under Uncertainty
SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit
Northrop Grumman Commits $50 Million to Firefly Aerospace to Drive Eclipse Medium Launch Vehicle

24/7 Energy News Coverage
France's upper house debates fast-fashion bill
Iran says no nuclear deal if deprived of 'peaceful activities'
In Canada lake, robot learns to mine without disrupting marine life

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Trump says Iran deal would not allow 'any' uranium enrichment
Danish PM warns NATO defence spending target 'too late'
UK to build attack subs as part of major defence review

24/7 News Coverage
Spain records highest May temps on record; UK registers warmest spring on record
Ancient Scottish Fossils Push Back Tetrapod Timeline
Rock record illuminates oxygen history



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.