Official quits amid dispute

SEOUL — The South Korean defense minister offered his resignation yesterday after a complicated dispute between government and military officials in the aftermath of a naval incident involving a North Korean boat earlier this month.

“My role is over,” Cho Yung-kil told reporters, adding that he was sorry for “causing confusion” to President Roh Moo-hyun.

His offer follows the Monday resignation of Lt. Gen. Park Seung-chun, chief intelligence director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and reprimands for five senior officers yesterday.

On July 14, a South Korean navy vessel fired warning shots at a North Korean patrol vessel intruding in southern waters in the Yellow Sea. At the time, the South’s Joint Chiefs announced that the North’s navy had not responded to communications over a naval radio hot line, set up by both Koreas on June 4 to avert such clashes.

When the North protested that it had communicated, the South Korean government ordered an investigation into why this communication had not been reported.

The radio log of the encounter, a classified military document, then was leaked to the press by Gen. Park in an attempt to defend the South’s navy, showing that the North had communicated with the South — but had not used the correct code.

It later transpired that southern naval officers had decided not to report the initial communication to higher-ups, for fear the officers would be ordered not to fire warning shots at the North Korean intruder.

Off the western coast of the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea, the “Northern Limit Line” is the de facto maritime border established after the Korean War and recognized by the South. However in 1999, the North unilaterally set its own demarcation line.

In recent naval incidents, there were miscommunications over the radio hot line as the sides seemed to discuss different demarcation lines.

Some analysts from the South say the North’s use of the naval hot line is a political tool to nullify the Northern Limit Line, as intrusion incidents have increased since the hot line was established. They also point out that until a demarcation line is agreed upon by both sides, incidents are likely to continue.

A major northern naval base lies just north of the west coast maritime border. The area also is a rich fishing ground and is patrolled by small, fast craft from both nations. It has become, in recent years, the most dangerous flash point on or around the peninsula.

Meanwhile, the first batch of the largest group of North Korean refugees to come to the South arrived at a military airport near Seoul yesterday from an undisclosed Southeast Asia country. The 200-odd refugees — mainly women and children — were whisked to an out-of-town holding center, where they will be questioned about their identities.

Also yesterday, the North Korean representative in the demilitarized zone between the Koreas wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urging the world body to dissolve the U.N. Command on the tense peninsula and press for the withdrawal of U.S. troops based in South Korea, Reuters reported.

“It is our view that a war in Korea is almost unavoidable as long as the U.S. hostile policy toward [North Korea] goes on,” Col. Gen. Ri Chan-bok said.