June 7, 1999
Web posted at: 12:13 a.m. EDT (0413 GMT)

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea on Monday denied a North Korean report that one of its warships entered the North's territorial waters in the Yellow Sea over the weekend.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said three South Korean warships followed North Korean fishing boats into waters off Kangryong on North Korea's west coast on Saturday before they were chased away by northern patrol boats.

South Korea "committed a grave military provocation of illegally intruding warships deep into the territorial waters of the North side," KCNA said.

A spokesman at South Korea's defense ministry denied the charge.

"It is not true our ships intruded into the North," Capt. Shin Han-woo said. "There is the possibility of misunderstanding because of the complicated border line in the sea," he added.

North Korea frequently accuses South Korea and the United States of trying to provoke a confrontation ahead of an invasion of the north.

"This provocation act is a premeditated move to lead the inter-Korean confrontation to its extreme pitch by artificially aggravating the situation on the Korean peninsula," KCNA said.

The Korean peninsula was divided into communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea in 1945. The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed truce and not a peace agreement.

Reuters contributed to this report.