Tag: Northern Limit Line

If you have been reading the ROK Drop this news should come as no surprise:

Pyongyang’s version of a military pact signed by both Koreas last month mentions the northern limit line (NLL) in angle quotes, which may mean it doesn’t acknowledge the maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea.

Seoul’s version doesn’t place any punctuation marks around the same words.

A lawmaker from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) exclusively revealed the North’s version of the agreement to the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. Former South Korean National Defense Minister Song Young-moo signed the military pact with his North Korean counterpart, No Kwang-chol, on Sept. 19 during the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.

If the North had indeed refused to acknowledge the NLL in September, it would contradict remarks made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this month.

The Blue House chief said on Oct. 11 that the North acknowledged the NLL in the latest summit. Both Koreas agreed to create a so-called peace zone around the area to prevent possible military clashes and establish a joint fishing zone, he said.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but Moon’s maritime peace zone that the Kim regime is so happy to sign an agreement on will surrender sovereignty of the NLL to the North Koreans by allowing joint fishing along the maritime border.  This plan actually dates back an entire decade to the Roh Moo-hyun administration when Moon Jae-in was President Roh’s Chief of Staff.  This map shows why the North Koreans are happy with the is arrangement:

The current NLL is depicted with the Blue line and North Korea’s claimed NLL is depicted with the Red line.

Moon’s peace zone would allow the North Korean boats to pass the current NLL to nearly the red line the North Koreans claim.  The giving up of sovereignty of this maritime territory will make it harder to defend the South Korean islands along the NLL.  Such an agreement would also set a precedent that the Kim regime’s claim against the legitimacy of the NLL is valid.  The last time a South Korean leftist government tried to give away the NLL the ROK Defense Ministry was furious.  That is likely why the Moon administration cleaned house at the Ministry of Defense before moving forward with this plan.

South Korea has made all these concessions to weaken their defenses against a North Korean attack and the Kim regime has yet to move one artillery battery away from the DMZ in return.

With the US military ready to respond to any nuclear or ICBM provocations from North Korea, I wonder if the Kim regime is setting conditions for justifying a provocation in the Yellow Sea instead with this recent announcement:

North Korea argued Saturday that South Korean navy warships have increasingly violated their disputed western sea border, heightening tension on the Korean Peninsula.

“The South Korean puppet navy warships’ intrusion into the territorial waters of the DPRK side in the West Sea of Korea has recently been on explosive increase,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English-language report monitored in Seoul. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

The KCNA argued that 101 navy warships infiltrated the inter-Korean maritime border on 81 occasions in April, which is almost twofold tallied in March.  [Korea Herald]

The Kim regime has never agreed to the Northern Limit Line established after the Korean War in the Yellow Sea.  They have a different definition of the border which means from their point of view the ROK ships are intruding in their territory.

North Korea may calculate that launching a provocation in the Yellow Sea may not trigger a US military response and at the same time allow the Kim regime to show power and save face despite the massive pressure the regime is facing.

A speed boat from the First Naval Fleet guards a group of boats catching fish in the country’s northernmost Jeodo fishery ground bordering North Korea in the East Sea on April 11, 2017. Located just 1 kilometer away from the inter-Korean border, the rich Jeodo area is opened only between April and December under the Navy’s strict protection against possible North Korean provocations. (Photo courtesy of First Naval Fleet) (Yonhap)

President Park Geun-hye (C) offers a silent prayer in front of a monument to fallen soldiers killed in North Korea’s 2010 shelling attack on the border island of Yeonpyeong, at a national cemetery in the central city of Daejeon on March 25, 2016, before attending a ceremony to commemorate South Korean soldiers killed in three major clashes with North Korea in the Yellow Sea. The government has designated the fourth Friday of March as the commemoration day for fallen soldiers in those clashes, including the North’s torpedoing of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in 2010, which killed 46 sailors. (Yonhap)

Some more strategic messaging to the ROK from the North Koreans in regards to the NLL:

The blue line is the current NLL while red line is what the North Koreans believe should be the NLL.

North Korea carried out a firing drill near the tensely patrolled western maritime border with the South for a second consecutive day on Thursday, raising tension on the peninsula following its new missile test.

The North fired about 190 rounds of shells from a warship and its coastal artillery from 7:10 p.m. to 9:40 p.m. near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), but none of the artillery rounds landed on the south side of the sea border, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.  [Yonhap]

The North Koreans seem to be building up to another provocation cycle over the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea:

Adm. Choi Yun-hee, the chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited the Navy’s western command headquarters on Saturday, vowing to defend the Yellow Sea border against possible provocations from North Korea.

Also on Saturday, North Korea test-fired three anti-ship missiles into the sea off its east coast in what was seen as its latest show of force against Seoul.

South Korean military officials identified the North’s anti-ship missiles KN-01 cruise missiles and said the missiles were fired off into the sea off Wonsan, a major port on the North’s east coast, in a span of one hour starting at 4:25 p.m.

The missiles with a range of 100 kilometers are believed to have been modified from Chinese Silkworm missiles, they said.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but all though the North Koreans test fired the missiles into the East Sea in was clearly intended to send a message to the South Korean Navy operating ships along the NLL.

This seems like just a continuation of the long running tit-for-tat along the maritime border between the two countries and not a planned provocation by the North Koreans:

South and North Korean patrol boats briefly exchanged fire Tuesday after a North Korean naval vessel violated the western maritime border, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The clash came three days after a high-powered North Korean delegation made a rare visit to South Korea and agreed to hold another round of high-level dialogue in the near future, raising hopes for a thaw in inter-Korean relations.

The exchange of fire took place at around 9:50 a.m. in waters near Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, after a North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) into the South’s waters, the JCS said in a statement.

“To force the vessel to retreat, our side issued warning messages and fired five warning shots. But the North Korean vessel fired back rather than backing down, which caused us to fire again. Then the ship made a retreat,” it said, adding that the exchange of gunfire lasted some 10 minutes.

Though the South Korean military fired some 90 shots, including 10 shots with 76 millimeter guns, most of the artillery did not have a long enough range to reach the North Korean patrol boat, a JCS officer said, requesting anonymity.

North Korea shot dozens of rounds in return and not a single one fell near the South Korean vessel, he added.  [Yonhap News]

You can read more at the link.