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(3rd LD) N. Korea continues commercial shipping after naval skirmish in Yellow Sea
By Kim Hyun
INCHEON/SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean cargo ship discharged a load of sand in a South Korean port on Monday in the North's first commercial trip across the volatile inter-Korean maritime border since last week's naval skirmish.
The voyage of the 1,296-ton vessel Kumpit suggests Pyongyang's intent to carry on profitable inter-Korean business projects, treating them as a separate issue from military warnings toward the South.
Officials from Seoul's Unification Ministry said the Kumpit, which translates as "the color of gold," arrived in the major western port of Incheon on Saturday as the first North Korean ship to come across the Yellow Sea since the naval confrontation. After unloading 2,100 tons of silica sand Monday morning, the ship is scheduled to return to its port of call in Kumsa or to the nearby port of Haeju, on the west coast at around 6 p.m.
"The ship has been on stand-by and was berthed at the wharf at 9 a.m. this morning, because berthing is sometimes not available on weekends," Lee Kyu-hyeong, a ministry official, said.
The silica sand the Kumpit brought is to be delivered to an Incheon-based trading company called Chun Do Co., the officials said. A staffer with the firm said on customary anonymity that it "regularly" brings in North Korean sand on orders from local construction firms.
South Korea has imported massive amounts of North Korean sand since the historic first inter-Korean summit in 2000. But import restrictions were recently strengthened amid suspicions that profits from sand shipments end up in the pockets of the North Korean military.
Last year, sand was the North's largest export item to the South with its trade volume worth US$73.35 million.
Another North Korean commercial ship was set to return home later Monday, officials said. The Songgwangryon, which arrived through the Yellow Sea days before the naval skirmish, will return via a different course along the East Sea, they said. It delivered 4,200 tons of coal to South Korea's eastern port of Pohang.
Tensions rose after the two countries' navies exchanged gunfire on Tuesday for the first time in seven years. The South suffered no casualties, but one North Korean soldier was killed and three others wounded, according to earlier South Korean reports.
North Korea has argued the South deliberately initiated the skirmish and warned of "merciless" military actions to defend its self-claimed sea border.
The Northern Limit Line, the de-facto western sea border, was unilaterally drawn by the U.S.-led U.N. Command that fought on South Korea's side at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. North Korea has never recognized it and has demanded the border be drawn further south.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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