Seoul - Warships belonging to North and South Korea clashed off their west coast Tuesday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported, citing naval and Defence Ministry officials in Seoul. A North Korean patrol ship crossed the Northern Limit Line, the countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea, prompting a naval vessel from the South to fire warning shots, the unnamed officials told Yonhap.
The North Korean ship returned fire near Baekryeong Island, a defence official said.
There were no reports of South Korean casualties.
"It wasn't a close-range battle," a naval official was quoted as saying. "We fired heavily on the North Korean vessel."
"It is our initial assessment that the North Korean boat suffered considerable damage," he said.
Deadly sea battles took place between the two Koreas in 1999 and 2002 near the Northern Limit Line. Tuesday's skirmish was the first in seven years.
North Korea does not recognize the border, which was established unilaterally by a US general at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. That war ended with a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving both Koreas still technically at war.
Relations between the impoverished Stalinist North and capitalist South, which has Asia's fourth-largest economy, have deteriorated since conservative President Lee Myung Bak took office in South Korea in February 2008.
A cautious rapprochement had taken place, however, in the past several months.
