Blatant Reality

In the past six years alone, North Korea has violated the Northern Limit Line 135 times, with 2/3 of those incursions being with military patrol boats.

Baek Seung-joo, chief researcher of the North Korean Studies Division for the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis, said that the crossing of North Korean fishing boats “can be understood as the pursuit of economic purposes. But patrol ships’ violations are an obvious sign that North Korea has no intention to respect the NLL.” Baek recalled that the North has repeatedly demanded a redrawing of the line but mainly uses the matter as a convenient pretext to reject South Korean proposal to build up mutual military trust.