North Korea said Saturday that a South Korean fishing boat it seized Thursday had entered its territorial waters illegally.
Inits first official statement, Pyongyang's official Korean Central NewsAgency said a "relevant institution is conducting a concreteinvestigation" into the incident.
South Korea's UnificationMinistry said Friday the fishing boat and its four man crew driftedinto the North's territorial waters after it apparently experiencedproblems with its satellite navigation system. The boat wasintercepted by a North Korean patrol boat and towed to the easternport of Jangjon early Thursday.
Seoul is urging Pyongyang torelease the boat and its crew. A spokesman for the UnificationMinistry said Thursday there is a clear precedent for the boat'sreturn, citing South Korea's return of two North Korean boats onhumanitarian grounds after they crossed into Southern waters.
Aspokesman for the South Korean military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, ParkSung-woo, said the fishing boat is relatively small, and made ofreinforced plastic. He said that made it difficult for radar to detectthe vessel before it crossed into North Korean waters.
Thursday's incident took place in waters west of the Korean peninsula - one of the tensest maritime regions in the world.
NorthKorea has never accepted a United Nations-mandated border there, andthe two Koreas have fought two deadly naval battles in the area overthe past 10 years.
North Korea is also holding two U.S.journalists and a South Korean worker at the Kaesong joint industrialplan across the border. Many in South Korea believe Pyongyang istrying to use the detainees as diplomatic leverage.