Four dead after Korean sea battle

A North Korean navy boat crossed the maritime border with South Korea and sunk a Southern patrol boat on Saturday, killing at least four sailors and wounding another 20.

There was no immediate word on North Korean casualties or missing in the 21-minute fight in the Yellow Sea. A Northern warship was seen being towed away in flames.

The South Korean military said a squadron of fighter jets patrolled the sea border after the incident, and a 1,200-ton battleship deployed closer to the area.

The clash was a setback to President Kim Dae-jung's so-called "sunshine" policy of trying to engage the isolated, communist North, which shares a sealed, heavily fortified border with the South. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

"The military provocation of pre-emptive firing by a North Korean navy patrol ship is a clear violation of the armistice and an act that raises tension on the Korean peninsula. We cannot keep silent," the presidential Blue House quoted Kim as saying at an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.

In a statement after the hour-long meeting, Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin demanded an apology, punishment of those responsible and a promise from North Korea that such an incident would not happen again.

But North Korean state-run media denied the South's claims that its boat fired first, saying the communist vessel was defending itself against an intrusion into Northern waters.

"The South Korean military authorities sought to invent any shocking incident" in order to disrupt efforts to improve inter-Korean relations, said KCNA, the North's news agency.

The clash occurred at 10:25 a.m. when South Korean navy vessels tried to repel two North Korean navy warships and an unspecified number of Northern fishing boats, the Southern military said.

A South Korean navy speedboat with 27 sailors aboard took a direct hit in its steering room from a heavy-caliber gun and caught fire. The South Korean military said a communist boat fired from about 500 yards away. The dead included a lieutenant and three enlisted men.

The South Korean military said 22 sailors were injured, but later revised the number to 20.

The maritime border between the two Koreas is not clearly marked. South Korea accused North Korea of making 12 brief border violations in the western sea last year.

In the summer of 1999, a series of border violations by North Korean ships touched off the first naval clash between the two Koreas since the Korean War. One North Korean warship sank and about 30 North Korean sailors died, according to South Korea. Several South Korean sailors were wounded.

The gun battle Saturday followed a series of border incursions by North Korean navy ships into South Korean waters in the area in recent weeks.