SEOUL, July 21: North Korean military exercises have raised alarm in the South as it prepares to salvage a navy boat that was sunk in a deadly clash between the rivals last month, officials said Sunday.

The North has this month been conducting artillery exercises along its western coast, off which occurred the naval clash that left at least four South Korean sailors dead, they said.

The South’s salvage operation, expected within weeks, could be foiled by the North’s artillery, defense officials told AFP.

“The North’s coastal-defense cannons have the area where our navy patrol boat went down within their range,” a defense ministry spokesman said.

He said the ministry and US military authorities have discussed ways to secure the planned salvage operation, likely to take place either late this month or early next month.

“We are cautiously watching the North’s move as we are preparing to salvage the sunken boat,” a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said, confirming the North’s military had carried out a summer artillery drill.

“Our preparations include the reinforcement of equipment and troops for the planned operation to safely recover the shelled boat.”

The naval clash in the West Sea on June 29 sank a South Korean patrol boat, leaving four sailors dead, one missing and 19 wounded. Some 30 North Korean navy crew were also presumed killed or injured.

Since the gunbattle the two Koreas have traded verbal threats over the planned salvage of the boat in the disputed waters claimed by both sides.

The North demands that the South gives prior notice of when it plans to pull the vessel out of the water. The South has dismissed the demand, adding that any obstruction of the salvage would be taken as a “provocation”.

The maritime clash showed how volatile the Korean peninsula is to fresh conflicts since the 1950-1953 Korean War that ended in a fragile armistice.

Tension has recently focused on the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a maritime border drawn by the US-led United Nations Command after the war, in the West Sea. The South respects the NLL while the North does not.

The latest gunbattle took place in waters just south of the NLL.

The South claims two North Korean navy boats crossed the sea frontier and one opened fire. The North says South Korean vessels opened fire first.

The South has urged the North to apologize for the “illegal provocation,” punish those responsible and hold talks to prevent its recurrence.

But the North has refused to hold military-level talks with the South.

The latest sea battle has put the inter-Korean rapprochement drive led by South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung on the brink of collapse.

The South’s leader held a watershed summit in June 2000 with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Il and agreed to work towards ending the long enmity.—AFP