S. Korea protests Japan's inspection of fishing boat
7/11/2008 16:51
South Korea officially protested against Japan today over unwarranted
inspection of a South Korean fishing boat operating in waters between the two
countries earlier in the year, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency
reported.
According to the report, South Korea's Ministry for Food,
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in Seoul that Japan should take steps
to prevent a recurrence of actions carried out by its Maritime Safety Agency
when it inspected a South Korean fishing boat.
Japanese inspectors that
boarded the South Korean fishing boat of Sejin 97 blocked communication and
claimed the ship had crossed over into Japan's exclusive economic zone when in
fact it had not, it said.
The inspection took place on May 16 on waters 27 km
south of Hong Island in South Korea's South Gyeongsang Province, which triggered
a confrontation between South Korean Coast Guard vessels and their Japanese
counterparts for over six hours there.
South Korea said that the fishing
boat's global positioning system (GPS) confirmed that it had stayed within the
territorial waters of South Korea's EEZ while Japanese officials said that some
South Korean boats kept improper logs of their operations and sometimes delete
the history of their movements from GPS systems, Yonhap reported.
Xinhua
|
